Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey is the first game from Panache Digital Games, a French studio led by Patrice Desilets, best known as the creative director on the first three games in the Assassin's Creed franchise. Ancestors is an open-world, third-person survival game set over 10 million years ago, where players control a member of an ape clan at the dawn of humankind.
Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey explores the evolution of humankind over an 8 million year odyssey, which is where the title comes from and is expected to last between 40-50 hours. At launch, Ancestors will only be available on PC through the Epic Store, however, PS4 and Xbox One are planned for release in December 2019. So, what do the critics have to say about the next game from the creator of Assassin's Creed?
Screen Rant (Leo Faierman)
With numerous survival sim and open-world games available, Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey  truly does feel like a one-of-a-kind game, a meditation on evolution that draws equally from scientific research and the types of games most of us play these days. For anyone even slightly intrigued about taking on the role of a formative hominid, this is a totally unique and sophisticated experience, but impatient gamers may feel shorted by the ruthless difficulty or emphasis on self-directed goals.
Score: 4/5
IGN (Dan Stapleton)
Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey's greatest challenge is working out – or simply Googling – how its basic survival, crafting, and combat mechanics work. Once you understand them they become mostly trivial, and the main appeal becomes appreciating the exploration of the huge and lush prehistoric African map. Evolving your tribe’s abilities feels artificially drawn out, but it’s hard not to develop a soft spot for these disposable apes because of their authentic animations.
Score:Â 7/10
GameInformer (Matt Miller)
I was deeply frustrated by Ancestors, so it may seem strange for me to say that I found a lot of promise, complexity, and nuance here as well. The novel concept and grand scope are far more appealing than dozens of other action or survival games on the market. This is a deeply flawed but richly imagined effort, but like many ambitious gaming projects at launch in recent years, it can now either die off like the Neanderthals, or evolve into something better from here.
Score: 5.5/10
GamesRadar+ (Rachel Weber)
Underneath all the weird visual effects and frustrating warthog attacks is a fascinating idea, an exploration of social and physical mechanics that feels like a galaxy brain version of leveling up in other RPGs. For some people, that idea will survive the endless cycle of death and repetition, for me any joy to be had in exploring and discovering lost its flavor like chewed up African Land Snail on the third or fourth clan. Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey is a brilliant tech demo for an RPG system that has the potential to revolutionize the way we progress our characters in games, I just wish it there had been a little less proof of concept and a little more fun.
Score: 2.5/5
Press Start Australia (Frank Watts)
Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey is an ambitious game whose conceptual vision is the very thing that bogs it down. There's a lot of unexplained expectations of the player, and, by the time those are worked out, it's easy to become bored or frustrated with it. Very likely, both. Combined with abundant technical problems, there isn't a lot to praise about Ancestors and even less to recommend.
Score:Â 5/10
GameSpot (Jordan Ramée)
Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey lingers for far too long on its most toilsome aspects. The game does reward initial experimentation, but then asks you to repeat processes over and over again without any means of securing your legacy. It's an absolute grind to reach the closest that Ancestors has to an endgame goal--survive for eight million years--and one costly mistake, whether the game's or your own, can erase everything you've accomplished. What small satisfaction the game does provide is consistently ruined by violent predators, though the threat does lessen once you make it far enough into the neurological network's expansive skill and perk tree. But as it stands, investing in Ancestors' journey demands too much effort for too little reward.
Score: 4/10
Polygon (Ben Kuchera)
It’s a refreshing experience, and I have a feeling that some players are going to give up quickly — I can’t say I blame those that do — while others will become obsessed with trying to figure out what the hell is going on, even if there is no extrinsic reason to push each generation past a certain point. It can also be distressing how little agency the other hominids exhibit until I take over, and how little instinct we seem to have in general. If I don’t take the lead in making babies or gaining territory, the clan becomes an inert group of hominids that are more or less waiting to die.
Score: No Score
As the first game coming from Patrice Desilets since Assassin's Creed Brotherhood, expectations are incredibly high and it's clear this is an ambitious project for the team. Unfortunately, review scores are all over the spectrum so it seems like while many will really enjoy their time with Ancestors, it's not going to be a game for everyone.
Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey is out now for PC with PS4 and Xbox One coming in December 2019.
