Telling the story of the origins of mankind, you are given command of an early group of hominids, and must guide them through eight million years of evolution to set them on the path to us. Be warned, however, that the world is not kind to these creatures, and that survival is the exception, not the rule...
The game was released on December 6, 2019 on consoles and PC; the PC version was initially a timed exclusive on the Epic Games Store before a release on Steam.
Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey provides examples of the following tropes:
- Acquired Poison Immunity: The playable primate will initially get food poisoning from eating eggs and meat, but can build up an immunity if enough is consumed.
- Action Commands: When attacked, the game will enter a brief bullet-time segment wherein the primate can dodge or counter-attack.
- Action Prologue: The intro starts off with a pelagornid catching a fish, only to lose the still-living fish, which, after several changes of hand/maw, is caught and devoured by an early hominid, who is promptly caught and devoured by an eagle. After a brief sequence where the player must guide the infant who the dead hominid was carrying to shelter, the player gains control of an adult hominid, and following the rescue of the infant, the full game begins.
- Always a Bigger Fish: The intro portrays how a fish is caught by a grey crowned crane, which is promptly eaten by a crocodile that was pursuing that same fish. A short while later, another crocodile is killed by a saber-toothed cat while looking at the dead fish (the crane dropped it when the first crocodile attacked). This is actually a game mechanic, as there is an evolution feat, Astute Dominator, for getting creatures to kill other creatures.
- Angry, Angry Hippos: Hippopotamus Gorgops are the absolute most dangerous animals on the water (and also on the land, alongside the Miocene Elephant), being highly aggressive towards both Hominids and Animals while also being extremely lethal — these things win absolutely every fight they get involved in, even against crocodiles.
- Anti-Frustration Features:
- Later updates increase the volume of the audio cues for the QTEs and add a visual aid on top.
- While there are three different types of Machairodus in the game (golden, black, and white), they're only treated seperately for the "Feared Enemy" and "Master of Escape" evolution feats. For the "Astute Dominator" evolution feats (which involves using one creature to kill another), any Machairodus can be used as victim or killer.
- If you apply medicine for an ailment you don't currently have, you gain temporary immunity to it instead. This can be helpful if you are trying to kill a creature that causes ailments, such as a mamba (venom poisoning), a crocodile (injury) or a Machairodus (bleeding).
- While you will get food poisoning for constantly eating mammal meat, viviparous meat, eggs, and mushrooms until you get the neurons needed to process them, only mammal meat requires a genetic mutation to fully process. The rest can be acquired through neuron reinforcement alone.
- Artistic License – Paleontology
- The game has centipedes the size of pythons in its cave systems, even though a. the genus they belong to, while large, is nowhere near that big, b. arthropods that large haven't lived on land since the Carboniferous, c. there is no know genus of centipede (living or extinct) to have ever gotten that large, and d. ignoring all of the above, it is unlikely a centipede would be able to get so massive when it has to compete with similarly sized snakes for food (such as the pythons in-game). Of course, if there were no centipedes in the games, then there would be no cave based threats.
- The Machairodus species featured in the game is referred to as Machairodus giganteus, which is actually from the larger genus Amphimachairodus (an animal that rivaled Smilodon in size).
- To a lesser extent, this applies to most of the game's animals. The human species evolves and changes into various genera, but all encounterable extinct animals in the game stay the exact same, meaning that some animals are encountered further back than when they originally evolved (Metridiochoerus and Hippopotamus gorgops), or lasted longer than when they originally went extinct (Stegotetrabelodon, Ceratotherium neumayri, Enhydriodon dikikae, Crocodylus thorbjarnarsoni, Machairodus (actually Amphimachairodus), and Adrocuta).
- Similarly, some extant animals are encountered much further back than the oldest fossils of them, most notably gazelles, African buffalo, and black-backed jackals.
- What the game refers to as "pelicans" are actually Pelagornis, pseudotoothed birds more closely related to waterfowl than to pelicans.
- Ascended to Carnivorism: The playable hominids are initially incapable of eating any meat that doesn't come from arthropods — attempting to do so will result in the Non-Omnivore ailment. You need to progress through a special branch of the neuronal network to unlock the ability to eat meat safely... which requires you to eat meat until your stomach gets used to it. The process can be sped up by drinking copious amounts of water, as this accelerates the rate at which Non-Omnivore fades.
- Bad with the Bone: Bone clubs are some of the more effective weapons that can be salvaged from corpses. They are the middle ground between stones and sharpened sticks — they have infinite durability and medium range.
- Big Creepy-Crawlies: Giant centipedes are commonly found lurking in caves, and can poison those who fail to dodge their venomous fangs.
- Breakable Weapons: Dead branches and the weapons derived from them will always be lost when used - either they are broken or left impaled in an enemy. The tradeoff is that they deal the most damage of all weapons.
- Canis Latinicus: Many of the non-living objects in the game are given pseudo-Latin names in a similar manner to the true Latin names of the animal and plant life you encounter.
- Counter-Attack: Even when armed with weapons as sophisticated as sharpened sticks or stone blades, the playable characters will only be able to counter-attack predators (and prey) via Action Commands.
- Critical Existence Failure: Averted - it is possible to take injuries that directly impair your movement, and you will need to either sleep off the injury or eat something that will heal it... assuming, of course, that you don't get eaten due to your new impairment.
- Cruel Elephant: The absolute most dangerous animals on land are not the hyenas, not the jackals, not the Machairodus, but the Miocene Elephant Stegotetrabelodon — these things win absolutely every fight they get involved in.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Generally speaking, a fight between two creatures will end with one easily killing the other, though occasional subversions exist:
- The Miocene Elephant and Miocene Hippo are always on the giving end — both will completely destroy every other creature they can fight against, with minimal effort on their parts. If you see them, run.
- Green and Black Mambas are on the receiving end — they will always get killed or intimidated away if they encounter another animal. Even the Warthogs, Miocene Otters, and Jackals will always win against one of these. The only animal the Mambas can actually successfully hit are the Hominids, and that's if the latter fails to dodge or counterattack. The Green Mambas have it especially bad — an unarmed Hominid can kill them in a single counterattack.
- Curb Stomp Cushion: The only creature that can deal a slight bit of damage to the Miocene Elephant before being utterly crushed is the crocodile, who bites it on the trunk for a bit before being gored by its tusks.
- Damn You, Muscle Memory!: The three primary senses (sight, smell, and hearing) all allow you to identify new creatures and objects in the world, and share the same prompts for finding and identifying items... except for hearing, which uses the opposite inputs from the other two (e.g. on PC, the input for finding and identifying items in sight and smell modes is left mouse button, but the input for the same commands with hearing is right mouse button).
- Death from Above: Eagles will try to catch you if you lurk in their nests or other high places. When you hear a shrill cry in these places, leave or prepare to dodge (or fight back). Progress far enough and they'll be replaced by pelicans.
- Diegetic Interface: There is no user interface whatsoever in the game unless you are on an easier difficulty - the only icons you will see are markings made to indicate various points of interest - plants, animals, objects, etc...
- Drought Level of Doom: The last part of the canyon (fittingly known as the desert by fans) is devoid of drinkable water aside from a single pool and an oasis, and has very limited food. It even lacks coconut trees, which are the primary way of keeping control of your thirst in dry environments. On the flipside, there are many desert melons in the area, which restore prodigious amounts of food and water when consumed. The problem is that there are many predators in the canyon, and limited amounts of dead branches to defend yourself with.
- Everything Trying to Kill You: Crocodiles, pythons, warthogs, saber-toothed cats, eagles, poisonous plants... really, it's easier to list what won't try to kill you, which currently amounts to a few types of plants and land snails.
- Feathered Fiend: Bateleur Eagles are one hazard in the trees. These prehistoric birds are big enough to kill an adult hominid, as the introductory cutscene shows.
- Fearless Infant: Subverted. Babies are just as vulnerable as non-Elder adults to the Fog of Fear when they're too far from a settlement.
- Goal-Oriented Evolution: Shown rather realistically, as the various things you evolve towards often take from the situations you put yourself in. Fighting a lot will improve dexterity to make more successful counters, using your senses a lot will improve them further, and some things require a genetic mutation to achieve (such as standing upright better). Also, most of the things you evolve are skills which have to be relearned between generations; actual genetics-based improvements are random, as they would be.
- Good Feels Good: Being nice to other hominids is one of the surest ways to boost your own dopamine levels, and everyone in the clan celebrates when a new stranger is welcomed in.
- Guide Dang It!: The whole game. You have to figure out everything for yourself. To list one example, non-hominid creatures usually can't be identified using the basic intelligence mode (sight), but can be highlighted by smell or hearing (indeed, it's the only way to mark them unless you have just engaged another creature in a fight).
- The Hunter Becomes the Hunted: This is one of the major evolutionary goals, figuring out how to use items as weapons and turning the tables on those nasty giant snakes and sabertooth tigers trying to eat you.
- Improvised Weapon: Branches can be stripped of twigs and sharpened into crude spears, making them effective weapons.
- Inertial Impalement: If falling from a high enough distance towards a branch, it's possible for your hominid to be impaled on a branch, killing them instantly.
- Instakill Mook: Several animals are capable of instantly killing a Hominid should the player fail the Press X to Not Die command. Notably, many animals are also instakill mooks towards other animals, which makes luring or intimidating other animals into encountering them a viable tactic.
- In-Universe Game Clock: There is a day-night cycle within the game, which can affect how far the player sees and, potentially, what might be active at the moment.
- Kidnapping Bird of Prey: The cinematic opening of the gameplay trailer ends when a Bateleur eagle
manages to grab both the adult hominid and the child it was carrying on its back, and carry them to its nest (which to be fair, was practically on a nearby tree), before finishing off the adult with a single strike to the head, as a distressed child escapes and becomes the character you play as... for a few minutes, before finding another adult to piggyback on. This only applies in the prologue, though — the eagle will just straight up kill you in every other instance. - Let's You and Him Fight: There is a whole set of evolution feats for many types of animals which you get solely from herding said animal into the other to make them kill the other. The game even encourages you to do this, as you will either satiate the predator with something else and it will stop pursuing you, or get the predator outright killed and no longer pose a threat to you.
- Morale Mechanic: Being attacked by predators, or exploring an unfamiliar area, will cause your hominid to become afraid, which manifests as glowing red images of predators appearing on-screen. In the case of fear from exploring a new area, you can eventually overcome it by examining enough of the area for the hominid to become familiar with its new surroundings. It is also possible to overcome fear through gaining dopamine from performing gratifying activities. If your dopamine stays at 0 for too long, your hominid will become hysterical and run away screaming back to your settlement.
- Never Smile at a Crocodile: Prehistoric crocodiles are one of the greatest threats in the game, though they can be temporarily incapacitated with a stick down the throat. They are also extremely durable, and need multiple attacks to be killed.
- Non-Combat EXP: You gain neuronal energy for doing just about anything in the game, ranging from fighting, to crafting, to eating new foods, and even walking on two legs. In fact, you're required to do all of these things to progress further.
- Noob Cave: The Hidden Waterfall Oasis is the starting settlement of the game where food is plentiful and there are no deadly hostiles. However, once you complete your first evolution leap, you will automatically leave this area.
- Not the Fall That Kills You…: Played around with. As an ape, your player character naturally has great climbing abilities (that only increase as they get better at using their legs) and you can catch yourself falling on most foliage or the sides of trees. The surface you land on and the age of your ape seem to be mitigating factors in how well you can handle high falls. Landing on solid rock from fifty feet seems to kill you instantly, but grassier surfaces may just give you a severe limp.
- Not the Intended Use: Sharped sticks are obviously weapons, but you can use them for pretty much anything, ranging from catching fish to poking holes and even lifting rocks (all of which can provide food, by the way).
- Permadeath: Of course, as this game simulates real life. When any one of your tribe dies, they are gone for good. Thankfully, on the death of the character you were controlling you will be immediately shifted to another in your clan. If your whole clan is wiped out, you get bumped back a few thousand years on the evolutionary timeline and start with a fresh one, fortunately.
- Rare Candy: Meteorites function this way; finding one on an expedition doubles the number of Reinforcements you get when you pass generations and gives all nearby baby apes one more beneficial genetic mutation. This is more of a gameplay concession than something realistic, of course. Meteorites are rare, and usually one only lands if you discover a sufficient number of landmarks.
- Set a Mook to Kill a Mook: It's very possible to get animals to fight and even kill each other by luring them near or dodging an attack so they encounter each other. This is extremely useful as you can satiate a predator and make it stop pursuing you, or get the predator outright killed and no longer pose a threat to you. There's even a whole set of "Astute Dominator of the (X)" feats that run by this trope, which you get by making X animal kill other animals.
- Shown Their Work: Every time you discover a new species, whether plant or animal, you get both its "normal" name and the Latin one flashing up on the screen.
- Snakes Are Sinister: African Rock Pythons are a fairly large threat in the early parts of the game - be careful to avoid straying too close.
- Stealth Hi/Bye: The saber-toothed cat often roams far from its actual den and if you successfully counterattack it, it will run away until it goes so far it despawns. By the same token it may attack seemingly out of nowhere unless you are particularly paranoid about checking your surroundings with hearing and scent.
- Super-Persistent Predator: The saber-toothed cat has a rather wide area of detection and will often come for your primates from distances where every other species barely cares you exist. It is not uncommon to settle in a new place, perform some task at ground level or simply explore and get rushed by one of these predators, which will pursue you constantly until you go somewhere they can't (usually up a tree), and even then they will wait for you a good while.
- Super-Senses: The smell and hearing of your hominids are exceptionally acute, and can be used to mark different items and creatures for later examination. Generally speaking, smell is used to locate food and medicinal items, sight is used for exploring and identifying tool objects (stones, bones, and sticks), and hearing is used to keep track of animals.
- Tactical Rock–Paper–Scissors: Each type of weapon has different uses, with none being able to fill all roles.
- Stones and their improved forms do the least damage, but are unbreakable, and have utility effects as well — granite grinders can be used to turn certain plants into medicine, obsidian scrapers excel at butchering carcasses, while basalt choppers are best at crafting other tools.
- Dead branches do a decent amount of damage, but break on a successeful attack. Their improved forms, the stick and sharped stick, are just as fragile, but do progressively more damage. They can also be used to catch fish, poke holes for snails and scorpions, and to lift rocks to find items hidden underneath them (and unlike with attacks, these actions don't break the stick).
- Hard Bones are best used for intimidating, as they hybridize the range of the stick with the durability of the stones. The tradeoff is that they do middle damage among the two and there's a gurantee of getting a negative status effect from certain attacks even if the counterattack is sucessful — something that is also the case with stones.
- Thirsty Desert: While the game has no official desert biome, the final portion of the canyon fits well enough — a barren, heat blasted landscape with animal skeletons and carnivores in plentiful amounts. The river flowing through here is so low the player can't drink it, leaving only the occasional egg as a way to quench your thirst (which needs to first be broken with a rock, lest you eat the egg instead and miss out on regaining fluids).
- Trial-and-Error Gameplay: Barring a few tips and hints, you are literally not given any help by the game, so you'll need to figure out everything for yourself. Later versions downplayed this somewhat by adding more tutorial messages to give players some more context and idea of what they are supposed to do.
- Unexpectedly Realistic Gameplay: While the game aims heavily for realism, just how much it leans into this trope can still be surprising.
- Eating any food that isn't plant material, fruit, or certain arthropods, such as snails, will give you food poisoning. The only way to stop this is to keep eating them until your stomach adapts.
- While even the earliest playable hominid can stand on two legs, walking upright is a different story - the player must unlock neurons that allow them to take a few steps while upright and gradually work their way toward total bipedalism.
- Drinking from stagnant pools will give you food poisoning, as these pools can have algae and other things in them that make the water unsafe to drink.
- Wide-Open Sandbox: The map (which you have no representation of in game) is fairly big and is broken down into several parts such as: Jungle, Woodland, Lake, Savanna, Canyon and Ocean (The lake and Ocean sections are on the shore, naturally). Among them are many locations to discover, crashed meteorites to find, species to encounter and places to settle.
- Xenophobic Herbivore: Most herbivores act realistically, but the straightest example here would be the Miocene hippo Hippopotamus gorgops and prehistoric elephant Stegotetrabelodon - they kill absolutely every other creature they can fight in an instant. If you value your life, stay away from them.note
- You Have Researched Breathing: You actually need to unlock the ability to stand upright. Justified in that this took a lot longer for hominids to master than most people expect. As the game is about the gradual evolution of hominids, a lot of skills amount to this from the perspective of players. To list a few, you need to develop special neurons for standing upright, walking on two legs, carrying things with both hands, and be omnivorous.
