Hello fellow gamers, today i will be reviewing Ubisoft's Far Cry Primal. One of the great things games can do is give us a glimpse of
a different world. It might not be authentic, lifelike, realistic or remotely
believable. It might be a fantasy, dream or nightmare. What matters is that it
feels – if only for a few hours – convincing, and that it takes you out of your
mundane life.
Very much a 'take the previous template and make it feel
primal' approach, Ubisoft's latest imagining on the Far Cry franchise is a
smart piece of work. The atmosphere and scope in particular are highlights,
making you feel as if you have traveled back to the past where tribes, woolly
mammoths and Sabre toothed tigers roamed the Earth. There are no guns. There's
no radio conversations. There's no pretty much everything you might expect in
today's world!
Such a decision has shunted Far Cry into somewhat new
territory, too. With an emphasis on what tools were around at the time,
crafting and building feels essential from start to finish. Whether that's
sculpting a new arrow for your bow, or smashing together a new club to whack
someone in the face with, collecting resources is as important as doing
missions.
Such evolution is nothing new to the Far Cry games, mind.
It's certainly dressed up in different clothes this time – as well as having an
addictive nature – but the familiar tentpoles are all there. Nowhere is this
more apparent than Primal's mission structure. All set within a map so big
it'll make you sick, the majority of the time you'll be hunting animals,
recruiting important members of your tribe, or flat out killing your main
rivals, the Udam. Certain missions play with the formula a tad (and as you'd
expect it's littered with side quests), but a certain routine does set in
relatively early.
There's nothing wrong with 'do mission, return home, level
up, do another mission', but if you've sunk a lot of time into past Far Cry
titles there's a slight chance it may all start to ring a few bells sooner than
you'd like. There's only so long you can go looking for a deer to skin until
before getting the itch to do something else. When it's good, however, it is
entertaining and presented pretty damn well, the visual side of things being an
absolute treat.
Whether or not it's better looking than Far Cry 4 is arguable,
but from the off Primal is an example of why the current generation is
impressive. Be it the sheer size of the thing or how pleasant it is to find a
high spot and just stare off into the distance, Ubisoft's engine remains an
absolute monster. It's a huge plus, mostly because it turns simply walking
around the environment into a joyful experience. And then there's the bow and
arrow.
Thankfully there are ways and means to avoid this, namely
the ability to tame animals. Far Cry Primal holds nothing back in this regard
either: if you want to have a bear as your partner in crime, you can go and get
a bear to be your partner in crime. What's more, you can extended your finger,
whistle, and the monster will go rip apart your prey. Acting as a party of
sorts, it's a constant as you progress, coming into its own when larger beasts
become accessible. Much like nearly everything in-game, this can also be ranked
up. Before you see the end credits, you'll essentially be a walking disaster.
Far Cry Primal is a very fun video game (which sounds like a
sentence a child would write), but it is a video game you've played before.
Think how much a new setting means to you – and how much you enjoy Ubisoft's
take on the open world genre – and the answer to whether you need this should
be very clear. If you're still on the fence, you can ride around on the back of
a woolly mammoth should you choose. That's alright...