Far Cry Primal Review

 

Welcome to the Stone Age

I've always liked Far Cry, way back in the day I played the very first Far Cry at ECTS 2003. It was something pretty special, demoed by the then developer: Crytek, and really blew me away. When Ubisoft took the franchise on I enjoyed Far Cry 2 and every Far Cry since then has been fun, especially Blood Dragon, which was just insane in all the best ways.

Troy Baker took Far Cry 4 to the next level and honestly I wondered what the heck they could do next? How about a solely single player game, with a heavy focus on removing modern tech?

Enter Far Cry: Primal

Dropping the modern tech, the modern world and focusing on a era which really hasn't been explored in video games all that much, Far Cry: Primal turns back the clock from 2016 to 10,000 B.C. and does a fine job of keeping the things I like about Far Cry in general.

It's classic Ubisoft at the core, replete with side quests and things to find, lots to do. Yet I always get a bit bored with the modern Far Cry games, perhaps its the advantage that tech gives to the enemy - the constant supply of trucks, cars, bad guys with AK-47s to shoot.

Rolling back time to a place of fire, fear, wilderness, and primitive combat feels oddly refreshing and a definite break from the norm of: Sergeant GunLord Williams III. Or in the case of Far Cry someone just trying to keep one step ahead of a maniacal bad guy like Vaas Montenegro from 3, or Pagan Min from 4.

It's a different kind of shooter that's got some definite twists in the gameplay mechanics to keep you coming back for more.

Oros Beckons

Welcome to the mythical land of Oros, a gorgeously realised chunk of pre-history. A place where towering mountains, vast plains, huge forests, and rivers intersect with the thunder of Mammoth's feet and the growls of a plethora of dangerous wildlife. A harsh land, an unforgiving land to begin with, but master the many new skills at your command as Takkar and you can do more than just slaughter your way through the enemies you'll encounter.

Takkar is one of three tribes, the Wenja, the Udam (cannibals) and the Izila (slavers/masters of fire). When Takkar's tribe are forced to seek a new home, due to starvation, the hunter goes in search of Oros, a land far away from his home. The game opens with this search coming to a conclusion, and the events which follow shape Takkar from a simple hunter to a legendary beast master, and more.

Of course, I'm not going to divulge any of the story beats beyond what's mentioned on the back cover of the box, or what you might have seen in a trailer - you'll have to play the game to discover the rest.

Exploring Oros

Far Cry: Primal is built on the kind of gameplay loop which lets you explore the game at your leisure, never forcing story on you, allowing you to go your own pace and do your own thing. Mostly everything you do beyond your village's walls will feed back into your progression, earning you that all important XP to gain the next RPG-lite level up and allow you to fill out your skill tree.

The story is drip-fed to you as you complete one task for someone, find a new Wenja master to open the next skill tree, or perform the requisite upgrade to the village. Yep, that's right, you get a whole village to grow and watch as it transforms from a few simple little huts, to a vibrant place with its own life as the AI goes about daily tasks.

You're never pulled out of first person experience either with the cinematics, they take place within your own viewpoint, affecting you directly and giving you a real connection with the game's world and its people.

As you explore Oros you'll encounter random events, these often feed into the village aspect of the game - rescue Wenja and you'll get an increase in population. There are milestones for this, and at every one you'll get a reward for the village - until you hit a particular population cap, after that you'll get a boost to your bonus XP per 10 villagers saved.

Most of these fall into simple categories, rescue, kill, and so on. They're fun, they lend a living aspect to the game and they don't really feel repetitious thanks to the array of weapons and tools you can use to take down your foes. Yep, this might be set in 10,000 B.C. but you're never a few moments away from a takedown, stealthy bow shot, bee grenade, or some other means to finish off your enemies.

Day and night plays an important role in the game, early on you get a real feeling of tense exploration when the sun goes down. The animals change, the night hunters come out and a pack of wolves can provide a real challenge on the higher difficulties. Night lets you become the hunter too, enemies are more wary, travel with torches and stick closer together - their vision is diminished and they rely on sound. So if you move low, slow, and carefully you can get the drop on an Udam hunting party.

If you need to see, you can always use animal fat to set your weapon on fire. But remember, this will give away your position to the enemy and draw predators faster than you can say: ARRrrrGH! Also, it won't last long if it's set on fire, it will eventually break.

Fortunately there's numerous activities to help you as you explore. A slew of collectibles will offer rewards, secrets, and more. There's enemy outposts to take over, bonfires to capture and all of these will open up new missions, new fast travel spots and new safe places to rest/gather resources, repairs aren't as hard as they could be - thankfully.

Oros is also huge, the map just keeps on delivering great locations which are extremely well realised. The caves are some of the scariest places to go, even when you're skilled and packing upgrades.

The Craft of Hunting

Since this is the Stone Age, all your weapons have durability, clubs and spears will break, your bow is going to need fresh arrows and so on. You can gather a resources as you travel through the various areas of Oros, things to help you upgrade your gear, build up the village huts and craft new supplies as you continue to delve deeper into a primal land.

You'll spend a lot of time hunting, finding animals, rare or otherwise and killing them for meat and hides. Takkar has a Witcher-like Hunter Vision which lets him see clues, follow trails and pick out various resources in the environment. This can be upgraded in the skill menu, providing more visual clarity for things like resource caches, plants, rocks and so on. They can be made to appear on the mini-map for example.

You village can also be upgraded to gain resources per day, allowing you to keep a steady flow of stuff needed to improve your equipment.

Hunter Vision can also let you tag enemies and animals as you upgrade your character.

Takkar the Beast Master

Early on in the game you'll unlock the ability to tame animals, these powerful predators become your allies as you explore. Each one offers you a unique additional skill to supplement your own vast skill tree, as is the norm with Far Cry now. Pressing up on the d-pad calls in your owl, he serves as your eyes in the sky, can tag enemies, be taught to kill from the air - even elite enemies, and drop bombs when you buy the right skill.

The owl is a useful tactical tool, a Stone Age drone which can also be used to command your chosen beast to attack unsuspecting foes. It makes taking on Outposts and Bonfires something special and transforms the game, adding a layer of tactics which aren't always present in these kinds of games.

Later on you can upgrade your skills to allow you to ride Mammoths, Sabretooth Tigers, Brown Bears and even a Legendary Sabretooth, which is basically like owning a killer Motorbike in 10,000 B.C. It's the fastest way to get around, and who doesn't want to sit astride their very own lethal transport which will auto-attack enemies that get in the way.

Of course hunting alongside your beasty partner is also fun, especially if it's the sabretooth - commanding the creature is easy, simple, requires only aiming and pressing the right bumper when looking in the direction of a target. Holding the d-pad right will call your animal back, and tapping opens the beast menu where you can revive a 'dead' beast, using red leaves, or call in a new one.

Taming an animal requires bait, then you throw it, watch the animal go to eat it and as they're eating just hold down when you're prompted.

Need to heal it on the field, just walk over and give it some meat to chew on. Done.

You can usually let them idle as well, and they'll chew on corpses that are lying around.

Language Please!

Wenja is not a real language, or it wasn't until two assistant University of Kentucky linguist Professors were brought on board to create the authentic Stone Age language used for the game. This isn't the Ug, and Grunt of the movies, this is a living and breathing language created using ancient language roots and would require an entire document just to explain how they did it.

Wenja language appears in subtitles for the in-game dialogues, but out in the world, you're going to have to learn it - some versions of the game come with the Wenja language book. For the rest of us, we can pick smatterings up and anybody who comes up with Piss Man as an insult is worthy of a high five.

So Andrew and Brenna Byrd, a big High Five to you!

The Language of Far Cry Primal Article

Not a Stone Age Game

There's nothing drab about Far Cry: Primal in terms of the graphics tech, it's a pretty game, there's a lot going on and the draw distances are good. I reviewed the Xbox One version and I've had rock solid frame rates, no visual problems, no real issues and certainly no crashes. The beast AI's been good and the AI in general has been a pretty solid challenge, tricking Udam hunters into exploring a particular area with a carefully tossed stone, then sending my beast in whilst the owl kills someone left at the camp never gets old.

The controls are good, the beast controls are simple, context sensitive and work a treat. Archery feels fun, it works well, and it's more forgiving than in the modern versions.

The story is neat, it's not the most fantastic story you'll get, but it's certainly fitting for the kind of setting - first person cinematics help ground you in the game world.

Jason Graves provides us with the soundtrack, which is grand and perfectly fitting for the theme of the game.

Call of the Wild

It's been a tricky one to review, because it's such a different kind of game to the modern Far Cry offerings - I'm immediately drawn to it and I've taken longer on this one so I can come to a conclusion quicker. For me, it's a must buy, I love it and I don't think you can get a finer, more immediate, and fun experience than this one, devoid of the trappings and expectations of our modern age it frees up the developers to be a bit more adventurous in their presentation and provides an excellent backdrop for the kind of gameplay loops Far Cry 3 and 4 offered.

Exploring Oros is a lot of fun, there's a lot of content here and a lot to see and do. I feel it's particularly good at delivering what it sets out to do, rather than re-invent the wheel, it polishes it so the wheel runs smoother.

It's fairly forgiving on the checkpoints too, allowing you to save the game state when you want most of the time - bonfires, camp fires and other things allow for a degree of safety and let you sleep until night/dawn to pass time.

I was going to set this as a recommended title, but you know what, I think it's a Must Buy and I hope you have as much fun with this as I have.

We have to thank Xbox for sending us a code for the digital version, cheers guys and gals!

A big shout out to the Mad Loons at the Xbox Madhouse too for their support of Games Xtreme, thanks for the additional views and comments folks!