As one advances, the player consequently takes control of the offspring and descendants of the original hominid clan, whereas the previous generations either age past reproductive viability or simply die off. These Evolution Feats and the production of offspring (especially those with advantageous mutations) allow the player to advance to the next generation or the next stage of evolution. Additional bonuses are gained by completing “Evolution Feats,” which include locating specific landmarks or accomplishing certain evolutionarily significant behaviors, such as killing other animals or those behaviors mentioned above. Repetition of these behaviors causes the accumulation of “neuronal energy” that the player can use to unlock improved abilities and new behavioral traits ( Figure 1). As the hominid, the player can engage in behaviors such as walking upright, fashioning tools from different materials, and finding sustenance. At the start, the player takes control of a quadrupedal ape meant to resemble the last common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees.Īt any one time, the player is in control of an individual “hominid” and can opt to switch to another hominid in the social group or use vocalizations to instruct other clan members (e.g., “follow me” and mimicry commands).
The result was a single-player, third-person adventure game set in a generic African landscape (consisting of ecosystems such as tropical rainforest, savanna, and coastline) and beginning around 10 million years ago. Désilets and his team started off by researching human evolution and then continued to read up on the topic throughout the development process (Patrice Désilets and Marc-André De Blois, personal communication 2021).
The cofounder and creative director of Panache, Patrice Désilets, was inspired to develop a game based in the deeper evolutionary past rather than the popular motif of “10,000 BC” that has “cavemen” running around with torches and killing mammoths in the Ice Age permafrost (Kelly Reference Kelly2019). Released in 2019 for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One, Ancestors: A Humankind Odyssey was developed by Montreal-based Panache Digital Games. LEARNING TO SURVIVE IN A PREHISTORIC LANDSCAPE In my view, video games, as exemplified by Ancestors, have great potential for exploring the basic components of human evolution and to reach and inspire a wider public that might otherwise learn very little about the subject matter. Using the medium of video games, is it possible to make a “perfectly” accurate simulation of human evolution? Perhaps, but that may not matter anyway. In preparing this review, I played the game in its entirety and subsequently interviewed the developers in order to clarify their intentions when designing the game (Patrice Désilets and Marc-André De Blois, personal communication 2021). In this review, I present my impressions of the game Ancestors: A Humankind Odyssey (Panache Digital Games 2019), specifically regarding its portrayal of paleoanthropological themes. At the same time, video games, like any media, might also misinform (e.g., Aron 2020 Dennis 2019 Emery and Reinhard 2016). Video games are unparalleled as an interactive medium and can serve as potential educational tools through intelligent game design and the players’ immersion in the game world (e.g., Mayo 2009 Rassalle 2021 Rubio-Campillo 2020 Winter 2021).
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