Publisher: Ubisoft
Developers:Ubisoft Montreal, Ubisoft Kyiv, Ubisoft Shanghai, Ubisoft TorontoPlatforms:MS Windows, PS4, Xbox OneWriter: Kevin Shortt
Series: Far Cry
Release date : 2016
Free as the First Humans! Or Are We?FPS fans have followed and enjoyed Far Cry for a long time. As an older gamer who isn’t particularly close to first-person shooters, I was nevertheless drawn to Far Cry Primal by its subject and the reviews I read online, and gave it a try. Unlike the other games in the series, Primal takes place in the Stone Age, around 10,000 BC. A time of early human tribes, before the world had taken the form we know today, when mammoths and sabre-toothed cats such as Smilodon had not yet become extinct. There were still many, many years before the one-fanged monster we call civilisation would sink its teeth into the planet. Nature was untouched, and humans hadn’t overturned the predator–prey relationship and placed themselves firmly at the top as they have today.
In this journey through history, we are a member of the Wenja, a tribe that has lost its homeland. We try to establish a place to live while struggling against nature and rival tribes. There are three factions, including ours. The first you encounter is the Udam. Their faces and bone structures resemble what we call Neanderthals. Living in a cold region, they represent a period when early humans discovered and settled in caves. Physically powerful and resilient, with an unfortunate habit of cannibalism, they will be your most frequent opponents early on.
Now to something I should have said at the start. The game has been out for over a year, so why write about it now? Look at its atmosphere, character designs and scenario, and you can see that they were built around scientific discoveries about humanity. Serious research into archaeology and early human history clearly went into its design. The vegetation, people’s physical appearance and social lives, their place in predator–prey relationships, weapons, enemies and quarry: the game presents all of this with wonderful visuals. Smilodon’s physical design and position at the top of the Stone Age food chain, for example, draw on scientific information from archaeological finds; so do the mammoths and fish. Let me underline that Far Cry Primal isn’t a simulation built entirely on science. Still, the references used in its design draw on what we have learned about early humans. In that respect, I see it as something to recommend to young people interested in archaeology and early human history. The tribes are similar. Their physical differences evoke Neanderthals, Cro-Magnons and phenotypes associated with different periods of human history. You’ve probably seen documentary reconstructions of early human faces based on skeletal finds. As for the story, it touches on these subjects while carrying you along through a very well-constructed plot full of cinematics. Its screenplay has already received recognition: the Writers Guild of America gave it the award for video-game writing. It was also nominated alongside Fallout 4 for Best Video Game in the annual awards of the British music magazine Kerrang! When I looked it up later, I read that the magazine gave the award to Rise of the Tomb Raider that year. With games like Fallout 4 and Far Cry Primal in the running, you go and give it to Lara.
HERE THEY ARE: EARLY HUMANS IN THE FLESHFar Cry Primal takes place in a primitive age when nature is defined by predator and prey. Humans haven’t yet taken up farming. They use basic weapons such as bows and spears to protect themselves and hunt. Playing through this dangerous struggle, you feel how discovering fire and domesticating animals could transform humanity’s story and its position in the predator–prey relationship. An omnivorous species normally prey even to low-ranking predators uses intelligence and necessity to master fire and tame wild animals, suddenly changing its place in the food web. Creatures that would have eaten humans become their prey. Nature is beautifully depicted in Far Cry Primal. Animal movements, fights and reactions to hunting or being hunted are so convincing that encountering a predator on the hunt feels like watching a documentary.
Alongside the physically powerful, cannibalistic Udam is the Izila tribe. They seem to have stepped out of Apocalypto, meeting us with the appearance and clothing of the ancient peoples of Mexico who first studied the movements of the sun and planets. Like the Aztecs, the Izila are technologically ahead of the Wenja and Udam. They have already discovered how to use natural poisons and fire as weapons. Other tribes therefore know and fear them as people who control the sun’s fire. You see arrogance and politics in the Izila. Following that train of thought through Aztecs and pharaohs, I decided they were the phenotype closest to modern humans. Cruelty, politics, arrogance, ambition, love of status: the Izila have them all. Despite being cannibals, the Udam are merely savage; their physical appearance represents a period long vanished in human evolution. Every tribe has its own totems. Before religions with holy books, people worshipped totems and natural elements such as fire and the sky. Essentially, they worshipped power, believing that the forces they feared and considered strong would protect them and make them strong too.
Now to our own tribe, the Wenja: displaced and driven from their home. What chiefly distinguishes them is that a small proportion are born with a gift in their blood, the ability to control animals. We are a beast master born with this gift. Once the tribe’s shaman performs the ritual that reveals it, we can tame animals and assign them to protect us. Like the others, the Wenja hunt, reproduce and need living space. As one of them, we will fight to establish our own home in territory controlled by the Udam and Izila. Of course, the story doesn’t stop at building and defending a home. It continues until we bring down the other tribes’ leaders, destroy their homes and kill them, leaving their people scattered and leaderless.
Your first major breakthrough is learning to tame animals. Normally, nighttime is a struggle for survival, with a predator hunting around every corner. Leave the fire and you find yourself among hunters attacking through the darkness, eyes shining. Once you can tame animals, however, predators may flee rather than attack, depending on your companion’s place in the food web. Travel with a jaguar, for example, and wolves won’t attack. Wolves are the only predators that hunt in packs here, by the way. At night, they barely give you a minute to breathe. Cats such as jaguars and leopards, relatively small by the standards of the era’s predators, protect you from wolves and wild dogs. Their hissing frightens attackers away. This changes when you meet a species higher up the food web. A lion or Smilodon will still attack, because a jaguar or leopard isn’t a threat to it. The honey badger alone disrupts this balance. Designed to be as fearless and recklessly brave as in real life, it attacks if you linger in its territory. It doesn’t care whether you have a grizzly or a sabre-tooth beside you. A honey badger is a honey badger everywhere.
To control an animal, you first find it in the wild, bait it and tame it. Once it is in your roster, you don’t have to find another if it dies. Spend some of the red leaves growing everywhere and you can revive it. Each companion has its own attributes, explained beneath the animal when you hover over it in the menu opened with B. A wolf occasionally growls to warn off other predators, protecting you from dangerous encounters. A cave lion reveals nearby enemies on the minimap even if you haven’t seen them yourself. For stealth missions, such as infiltrating enemy territory, the rare black leopard comes into its own: it can kill an enemy without being detected. The same attack by a lion or bear alerts everyone. Since I enjoy a stealth-focused approach, the rare black leopard was my most-used animal. Some animals are ‘rare’ versions of a species in a different colour, generally black here. They don’t always appear in their marked areas and have better strength, stealth or speed than ordinary versions. Sometimes you meet them at night, sometimes somewhere completely unexpected. Almost every animal and plant has a rare version, including herbivores. Village and weapon upgrades sometimes require their hides. You can track them through Hunter Vision, activated with V. Rare animals leave a temporary cloud behind as they flee, visible in that mode. Besides your ground companion, you have a large owl serving as eyes, ears and scout. Summon it with Z to survey enemy territory from above, identify numbers and types, and plan an approach. Later upgrades let it drop different bombs over enemy positions or attack enemies directly.
I’ve tried to explain the predator–prey relationship among animals and between them and you. Beyond those categories are four special animals presented as the strongest and most fearless. You can tame three, but must first complete their unlocked missions and defeat them: the Bloodfang Sabretooth, Great Scar Bear and Snowblood Wolf. There is also the Bloodtusk Mammoth, which you cannot recruit as a companion, although you gain the ability to ride mammoths. Apart from the mammoth, each can be tamed after its Great Hunt mission. These hunts are quite difficult, so set nearby traps before beginning. The Great Scar Bear is the largest animal you can own. It cannot enter narrow caves or openings and will turn back, so summon a smaller companion in those situations. You can ride tamed animals such as Smilodon and brown bears to move across the map faster. While mounted, however, the food-web balance described above doesn’t apply. Once your animal’s submission to you is on display for all to see, the other animals apparently stop taking it seriously. Ride a Smilodon if you like: wolves, leopards, dogs and everything else will still attack.
Ultimately, Far Cry Primal does a wonderful job of letting us observe Stone Age human life, relationships with nature and the struggle between animals as predators and prey. For adults and children of secondary-school age and above interested in these subjects, I consider it worth recommending. They have taken sabre-toothed cats and mammoths out of faint pictures in books and placed them before us. We can talk to and observe ancient people who paint on walls, build totems and begin learning about sex and reproduction by imitating lions and wolves. What more could you want? As I always say, everything Ubisoft touches turns out well.