Whether I was using my club as a makeshift torch in the recesses of a cavern, or firing a crackling arrow into the heart of a rival tribe’s camp, manipulating the environment with this natural destructive force was always a highlight. It’s present here, and it’s just as much fun as it’s been in the last several iterations. Ever since Far Cry 2‘s spreading, deadly brush fires, the franchise has made good use of the power and unpredictability of flame. I did, however, appreciate the ability to ignite most of my weapons. There is little to no difference between this version of Far Cry set in the time before recorded history and Far Cry 3 playing as an energy drink-swilling skydiver, but it feels like there should be. Rather than feeling like I was adapting to combat in a savage world, my armaments felt and functioned like guns in a prehistoric disguise. You’ll also get a selection of grenades - bees, poison, or “berserk” - and somewhat redundant throwing knives. The spear functions as a hybrid of the two, but is almost always less effective than either specialized option. You can melee attack with a small, quick club, or a big, slow club. A few hours in, you’ll have an equivalent bow-pistol, bow-shotgun, and bow-sniper-rifle. This reliance on modern FPS tropes waters down the experience. It’s solid and reliable, but it’s also a carbon copy of modern gunplay. Each of these concepts is dripping with opportunity for gameplay exploration but is almost always narrowly missed in favor of bullet-point execution that consistently misses out on the sense of wonder it could provide.įirst and foremost is combat. You’re also their venerated “Beast Master,” gifted with the pseudo-supernatural ability to tame and command the creatures that fill the valley. You are Takkar, a warrior of the scattered Wenja people, striving to unite his tribe in the promised land of Oros. Far Cry Primal isn’t just a step backward in time, it’s a step backward in virtually every other way. But Blood Dragon was also half the cost of a full-priced game and was hilarious and brilliant in every other way. Let’s be clear: Far Cry Blood Dragon was unfettered genius, and it recycled Far Cry 3‘s geography wholesale. The recycling of Far Cry 4‘s map is one of the most obvious symptoms of Primal’s determination to iterate rather than innovate and smacks of the same poor decisions that led Ubisoft’s other major property to languish.
Repeated over dozens of hours, it becomes rote. Sometimes it’s thrilling, but more often it’s exactly like the last thing a shouting Wenja asked of you. From there, you’ll do a lot of picking flowers and killing a variety of animals, while pursuing dozens of sidequests to escort, protect, or kill your fellow cave men. Everything you’d expect from the series is present in some respect, albeit often muted.Īfter a linear introductory sequence that introduces you to the prehistoric Wenja tribe and their quest for unification, you’re dropped into a very familiar expanse of geography. Unfortunately Far Cry Primal, in the service of a unique and expansive setting, fails to look beyond those limitations for something more. That’s not to say that Ubisoft’s prehistoric spin-off from their blockbuster tower activation franchise isn’t enjoyable.
When observed from that limited vantage, the past can seem overtly bland and simplistic. No guns, no vehicles, no structures, no rule of law or unified culture.
Unlike the distant future, people seem to describe ancient eras in terms of their limitations rather than their freedom. Until Assassin’s Creed, the furthest into history you could expect to travel in most AAA releases was World War II. I’m not sure why we don’t see more games based in the very distant past.