It looks like Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey is no longer set to be episodic and it is going to let us dictate how our Ancestors came to be
Just about two years ago we had a tease for a new game called Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey. This was the new project that Patrice Desilets (Assassin’s Creed) and team over at Panache Digital Games was working on that would take us on a third-person action-adventure through the process of human evolution. All done in a form of a documentary of sorts as we watch and help guide our Ancestors through everything from the very beginning of it all to our current age. All in an episodic form that was assumed to have each major era be a different episode. That was the assumption I and others made but never was every completely solid.
Now that two more years of development have come and gone, it looks like Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey is going to ditch the episodic design and become something “more open.” This is at least according to Desilets in a recent interview where such was explained. Seeing as Ancestors has evolved as the game’s subject matter is aimed to do, it has become something bigger and from the sounds of it, something that can only be done well in an open-world style of setting. That too is an assumption based on the references to a “bigger world” that crop up a few times even in the snippet of the interview just below. Either way, this could be a great way for the game to go.
“It’s a third-person adventure game set 10 million years ago,” Patrice Desilets of Panache Digital Games explained. “Before it was episodic, and that changed the pace, but the content is the same. It’s a bigger game, a bigger world. It was hour to hour; now it’s open and I let the player tell their own stories. There are systems talking to each other, not me taking players by the hand. You’ll create the story of your own ancestors, and maybe it will be different than what science claims.”
It is also interesting to note that Ancestors may also let us craft a world that is not a parallel to ours based on how we trigger the evolutionary instances in time and turning points of some of the progress of the species. We are going to get to create our own stories along the way and possibly find ways to go about the whole process that run contrary to what current science dictates. How vast of a difference Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey could go is beyond me currently but I have a feeling that we are not going to be able to go down a path that will get us the X-Men or other super-powered beings based on the evolutionary need for them all.
Of course this announcement wouldn’t be as interesting to all if it wasn’t for a new trailer to go along with it. Here we have a new look at Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey pre-alpha build of the game using in-game visuals to show off a few things. Given that the events here are still set back 10 million years ago, it doesn’t look like much more than slightly intelligent apes fend for themselves in a harsh world, but we all had to start somewhere; and it doesn’t look like we have the option to only go back 5000 years and say “poof…there is man and his clone made female.” Wouldn’t that be a fun little mix up to the science of it all?
Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey — Teaser 2017
Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey is a third person action-adventure survival game. The player will relive the early story of mankind with a documentary twist. Humanity is one idea away from evolution or extinction…
What are your thoughts on Panache Digital Games ditching the episodic structure for Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey? Do you think that it will become a fully open-world game or will it still have some direct guidelines but all at once instead of over time? Do you think that there could be a Christian Mythology mode or DLC for the game to appease those who don’t want to go with science? Give us your thoughts on this and then discuss in the comments below. Hopefully we won’t have to wait two more years for more on Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey, but no matter how long it is, we will have it all here for you. Keep checking back in to make sure you see it all.