If you have ever played the Far Cry series then you know how the game goes. End up stuck on an island and for some reason you are the only character who seems to be able to do anything to stop the bad guys and find ways to survive. Primal takes a very different spin on things as the previous games were focused on recent times and this one focuses in a completely different time period: 10,000 B.C.E. Whereas this opens up a whole new world of possibilities for Ubisoft, the developer and publisher. There were many things I noticed in the game that made me question if this game was somewhat modeled after the previous game, Far Cry 4.
First off let's start with your character. You play as a Wenja tribesman named Takkar who soon finds out that he has a special power, the ability to tame wild animals from the smallest dhole to the great saber tooth tiger and massive cave bear. This then earns you the name “Beast Master” throughout the map. Takkar seems to be the leader of his tribe named “Wenja” and the main premise of the story is to fight off the “Udam” tribe, who are the big meaty cavemen looking tribe who consider your tribe extremely weak and want to push you around, and the “Izila” tribe, who are somewhat similar to the Aztecs as they practice human sacrifice to appease their gods and are extremely interested in using fire as weaponry. Now this is extremely fun to do taking out other villages with just a bow and arrow and spears, but I have to say the plot in this storyline just wasn’t there for me. When I say this I mean that it just didn’t seem like there really was a deep underlying plot controlling what you do. Instead it was just to kill everything that isn’t Wenja, take over the land of Oros, and that’s basically it.
One thing that really bothered me about this was the fact that there was no main bad guy in the plot that you were hunting to kill, such as Pagan Min from FC4 or Vaas from FC3. These characters were almost sadistic in nature and really gave me the drive to take out these people guarding him and finally get the satisfaction of being the one to stop these mad humans from their reign of terror. Of course their were the leaders of the 2 tribes that you have to kill to stop them from attack your tribe, but you get no backstory on them, see them maybe twice before the final fight with them, and they are actually not even bad people. They just were doing what they thought was best for their tribe. It’s just not as satisfying and almost makes you feel cruel for killing these leaders at their ultimate end.
On a more positive note I must say that I did enjoy unlocking the many characters and gaining the rewards that came with them. Many of the characters were extremely strange which made them actually kind of memorable, such as the one armed crafter who pees on you after you first meet him. I do not think I will ever forget watching that strange scene. The other character that is quite memorable is Sayla, the girl you rescue in the very beginning of the game and she seems to be the second main character. She has this thing where she cuts off the ears of big name people she or other Wenja kills and keeps a necklace of them. Why she does this I’m not sure, but I’m guessing it’s like taking a trophy for a kill, like hunters mounting a deer’s head but instead she takes human ears (nasty).
Now I have to talk about the actual map and the scenery. When I talked to the other Real Dream Productions Co-Founder Andrew Cockerham, he seemed to feel as though the land was just in some undeveloped area in today’s society and that if you “escaped” that area then you may see modern day things. My personal view was that I could see where he was coming from because the animals were mostly all modern, besides the Wooly Mammoths and Sabertooth Tigers, but I felt pretty sold on the 10,000 B.C.E. timeline when I explored the entirety of the map. One thing I have to say disappointed me was that many of the creatures you see are nearly exact copies of animals from Far Cry 4 and 3. With such a huge variance in the time of existence they could have made all new animals or at least make things bigger and more prehistoric! Alas, they put very little effort in that part. The animals are extremely vicious and look really good visually. The graphics of everything is just simply amazing down to the grass swaying in the breeze. PlayStation 4 has simply put out the best graphics I have seen on any gaming console to date.
Of course I have to talk a little bit about the weaponry and upgrades possible. This is the first Far Cry with no guns and the combat style moves away from long range fights and sniping to up close and personal spear/club fights with extreme brutality, graphic killing scenes, and dismemberment. Since it is 10,000 B.C.E there really is not a huge variety of weapons that you can use, but Ubisoft still found ways to incorporate “grenades” and strong long-range weapons. To make these weapons you must run around and collect resources, which is quite common in the Far Cry series. These resources are also used to upgrade your Wenja homeland and earn bonus xp and weapon upgrades for doing so. Animals that you tame can also be used as a very fierce battle companion, especially once you upgrade your beast taming skill to 3+/4 points because then you get the big ones like the saber tooth. My personal favorite to take into battle is the Rare Black Jaguar because he is resistant to fire (which sounds silly but if one flame goes rogue it's likely a whole village will burn down) and is the stealthiest killer, which helps you go unnoticed and get bonus stealth xp in missions. It is slightly unrealistic though as the jaguar screams and growls while it kills the enemy, but if the kill wasn’t in their direct line of sight then they are completely oblivious. I guess Sayla must have taken their ears at some point.
Another big thing that was different in this game was that there is absolutely no co-op. In previous Far Cry’s there was a multiplayer mode where you could fight other people online as well as do missions with your friends. This game cut all of that out and left it as a strictly single player campaign game. One of the game developers said something about Ubisoft trying to focus on just the best way to make the gameplay feel real and that was single player only but I’m not entirely sure why they couldn’t just cut out the multiplayer battles online (which no one played and trophies sucked to get) and leave in the ability to do missions with a friend online; for example let's you and your friends do all the “Help Wenja” missions together that are scattered along the entirety of the map. Seems to me like that could have been a reasonable thing to do but alas it was not done.
Last thing I want to touch on is just technical aspects of the game. The movement in the game is very steady and I have not really had any problems with jumping and grabbing ledges which was a big problem for me in the previous Far Cry games as I would jump and sometimes my character would just not grab the ledge and I would fall to my death. Combat is pretty straightforward and simple to grasp: Bow for long range attacks, but deal less damage unless it’s a headshot; Club for up close combat for devastating melee hits which can break bone armor; Spears for both close combat and long range when you throw them, dealing incredible damage. Of course all these can be upgraded for more damage, better stability, and the weapon itself becomes more “advanced” looking and aesthetically pleasing. Resource gathering is quick and easy as resources are quite plentiful if you know where to look. This is also made easy by activating your Hunter Sense, which highlights nearby resources, animals, and threats. Fast travel is nearly perfected in this game as the locations are spread out and in key areas, as well as the loading screen times are extremely short, most of the time 5-7 seconds which puts many other games to shame. I grew up with dial-up AOL internet which took a good few minutes to load up a freaking browser and tied up the phone line; 5 second loading screen times for a game this detailed blows my mind. This is an all around extremely fun game and I have enjoyed playing the game and highly recommend this game to all my friends. I will soon get the platinum trophy then 100% the game and be finished, which is the best gaming feeling ever.
Score: 8/10
Trophy difficulty: Medium/Hard – Most of the trophies are extremely easy to get and just require either lots of travel or long searches for rare animals to tame. Medium difficulty if you have good patience. Those with less patience and perseverance may find these trophies in the Hard range.
Recommendation: If you like the Far Cry series then obviously get the game, it is a very new outlook on Far Cry. If you like free roam story mode adventure games, somewhat like Skyrim, then you will enjoy this game. If you want to play Far Cry multiplayer, this is not the game for you.
*This game was played and reviewed on the PlayStation 4. It is also available on Xbox One and PC.
This review was originally written for Real Dream Productions. You can find more HERE.