Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey box art
Tue 8 DecPEGI 16

Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey

UK release dateTuesday, 8 December 202624 days to go
Platforms
Switch 2 · PS5 · Xbox Series X|S
Genre
Role-playing (RPG), Adventure, Indie
IGDB rating
68/100 (78 ratings)
Modes
Single player
Online mode
No · Single-player only

What it is

Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey is a single-player survival game played from a third-person view and set in an open world. Players control a member of a hominid clan and manage its needs by eating, drinking, and sleeping while facing predators and other dangers in the wild. Exploring new places and being hunted can trigger a state of fear, which is offset by rewarding actions such as crafting tools and making discoveries. As the clan learns and grows, players unlock new skills through a neural development system and can switch between clan members, passing acquired abilities to future generations. The game has no structured narrative campaign and instead lets players shape their own experience.

Set in the jungles of prehistoric Africa around ten million years ago, the game places the player in control of a clan of hominins, early members of the evolutionary line leading to modern humans. The world is an open, dangerous wilderness filled with predators and natural hazards, where every foraging trip, climb, and encounter carries risk. The player's goal is to keep the clan alive and guide it as it slowly grows, learns, and evolves. By exploring, making discoveries, developing new skills, and raising new generations, the clan gradually advances across a vast span of time toward becoming something new.

▶ Trailer

Our coverage

Nothing written yet. Once we’ve played it the review, first-10-hours guide, unlockables and UK buying advice will collect here. Meanwhile the Briefing has this week’s launch notes.

Details

Developer
Panache Digital Games
Publisher
Fictions / Private Division
Themes
Action, Survival, Open world
Perspective
Third person
Engine
Unreal Engine 5
Age rating
PEGI 16
Listed date
Aug 27, 2019

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Dates, prices and artwork

UK release date and launch RRP as confirmed by the publisher. Store links may be affiliate links; they never change what we say about a game. Box art, screenshots, trailer and game facts via IGDB, refreshed 14 Nov.