Reviewers Liked
- Unique and ambitious concept
- Discovering things is a joy
Reviewers Didn't Like
- Slow, janky, and will drive some away with its intentional obfuscation
- Fiddly controls
Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey
Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey is an impossibly ambitious game, attempting to summarize the whole of human evolution into the span of a few hours—and succeeding to a surprising degree.
-- As reviewed by PCWorld
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Expert reviews and ratings
By Destructoid
on
Solid and definitely has an audience. There could be some hard-to-ignore faults, but the experience is fun.How we score: The Destructoid reviews...
By ImpulseGamer
on
Help your early ancestors tame a savage landscape and evolve towards modern humans.Family TreeI've been very slow getting this review up… but there's a reason for that and the reason I'm putting it up now is a bookend for my experience with Ancestors:...
By God is a Geek
on
Initial bewilderment gives way to fascination as you understand what Ancestors is trying to do, but fiddly controls and a lack of hand-holding leads to frustration.
By VideoGamer
on
So, what gives? Why the long wait and how come we find ourselves flung so far back into the past? It struck me, at first, as the game design equivalent of Thoreau, when he went into the woods. ‘I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential...
By GameInformer
on
An ambitious idea ultimately falls flat, as the rewards simply don't match a continuous stream of frustration and tedium.
By EuroGamer
on
Science aside, this made me think about how terrifying those early days must have been for those plucky hominids, the jungle crowded all around, survival seeming very unlikely indeed. Ancestors isn't really about the neurons and the connections that got us here, then. I'd argue that at its clearest it's about the empathy that is possible because of where all those neurons and connections are today. This weird, difficult, silly game is, deep down, actually sort of memorable.
By HardcoreGamer
on
Utilizing our natural instincts for discovery is truly the most ingenious aspect of the game, as it rewards us for problem solving in ways that already come naturally to us. It’s such a gratifying experience to see our hominids start out with no understanding of the world, to then become fairly self-sustaining creatures thanks to education and discovery. More than anything, Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey shows us what amazing creatures we truly are and how far we’ve come as a species. Understanding our past is the gateway to our future.
By Games Radar
on
If Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey is proof of anything, it's that life is better with a bit of evolution behind it. Sure, 2019 has its problems, but at least I'm not crawling through a swamp on broken limbs, guts in a mess because of some...
By New Game Network
on
Guiding a clan of primates through generations as they evolve certainly makes for a unique experience, and there are times when Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey comes together. But a lack of guidance on basic gameplay mechanics, as well as some clumsy...
By gamingtrend.com
on
So far, I have put about six hours total into the game between both sessions. I am very excited to learn how to weild a weapon to kill predators, and to explore more into the jungle. This has been a really unique and challenging experience, and I am...
By WCCFTech
on
Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey was such an interesting idea on paper but from its complex and unexplained environment to the severe lack of exciting objectives and goals to work towards, the game doesn't quite manage to entice the player to make the...
By Good Gear Guide
on
This industry and medium are notoriously risk-averse, especially nowadays in the era of ballooning budgets and longer development cycles. That Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey got greenlit, funded, and released is a minor miracle. Amazingly ambitious...
By pplware.sapo.pt
on
Ancestors The Humankind Odyssey é uma experiência bastante interessante e refrescante! Apresenta algumas deficiências nos capítulos sonoro e gráficos, mas o conceito principal do jogo é óptimo.A ausência de tutoriais pode afastar os jogadores menos...
By tribecareview.es
on
Para acabar el análisis me veo en la obligación de repetir que Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey es un buen videojuego, me ha tenido decenas de horas disfrutando con su mundo, de ver evolucionar a mi manada.Para mí ha sido un título muy inmersivo, he...