Walking into a recent Far Cry: Primal preview opportunity, I admit I wasn’t expecting much. I grabbed a controller thinking I’d be able to tool around in smaller version of the franchise, interacting with one-dimensional, unrealistic cavemen. It was hardly something to get excited about.
How wrong I was.
Spending four hours with the game – its first three, followed by a jump into its storyline to check out new gadgets and enemies – I was amazed at how quickly time passed. More importantly, I couldn’t get over how badly I wanted to keep playing.
In this iteration of Far Cry, easily worthy of the 5 moniker, but cleverly avoiding it to really represent its new setting, you play as a hunter named Takkar. He’s a member of the Wenja tribe, who collectively are displaced in so many ways; Takkar’s initial group is separated from the main tribe as the game opens, but the larger group has just been slaughtered and scattered to the winds by the cannibalistic and vicious Udam tribe. Udam’s leader is the terrifying – and deliciously Vaas-like, just uglier, simpler and creepier — warrior named Ull. Takkar finds he has the unique ability to tame and control animals around him, and, dubbed the Beast Master by his fellow Wenja, aims to unify the Wenja and rebuild their beautiful and plentiful valley, Oros.
It’s true that the basics of Far Cry are at play in Primal, but they mean so much more just because of its setting. You’re required to hunt to survive, first and foremost, in an environment that truly demands it. You’re not tracking and killing animals to get a fancy new medicine pouch in the first few hours of the game — instead, you’re doing it to actually eat. If you haven’t picked up a bow or a club to replenish your energy, you’re instead doing it to craft a weapon to fend off the next cave lion attack or piercing blow of a mammoth tusk. Or, worse yet, you’re gearing up to take on either of Oros’ antagonistic tribes: the aforementioned Wenja-eating Udam or the fire-wielding Izila. Either tribe is more than happy to dispose of you with a moment’s thought — and as scary as Ull is, Izila’s leader is far worse.
As the Beast Master, you’re aided in your quest by your spirit animal – a majestic owl. It can be called at will to take to the air and scout out the area around you. The owl can tag enemies – ‘cause you certainly don’t have binoculars – and also send other beasts in to attack if you’d like. Any of Oros’ beasts can be tamed, provided you’ve got the know-how and guts to do so. Some animals are fast and vicious, others are able to take a pounding and others still, work best stealthily. They’re all required aids to complete tasks, liberate Wenja brothers and sisters and build your fame and legend.
Primal takes some liberties, of course – its story is engrossing, but isn’t deep: survive and expand, almost to the point of conquering those around you. You’re not going to see a group of friends partying and getting kidnapped, or someone suffering from a crisis of conscience over their actions. The characters in Primal are far enough evolved that they can convey basic emotions, but they’re certainly not true-to-life as such; otherwise, there’d be a lot of grunting and clubs to the head. While there aren’t gyrocopters (that we know of), Takkar managers to get his hands on a grappling hook to easily traverse up high expanses. When it falls into your lap – almost literally — Primal merely offers up a tooltip reading something like, “you’ve found a mysterious tool that helps you climb”. Fair enough, I guess.
Yet, for every liberty taken, there is a counter – for instance, three distinct, detailed new languages have been crafted for each of the game’s three main tribes. It’s that type of attention to detail — yes, including rendered ball sacks — that immerses you in the world of 10,000 BC and it’s that same trait that will keep you in it, losing hours upon hours on end as you hunt just one more animal or liberate one more group of Wenja.
Quite literally, the one real complaint I have with Primal is that it really forces you to use the Batman: Arkham Detective vision-like Hunter vision to really plan out your strategies. Doing that means you lose the amazingly detailed world of Oros for neon highlights. Toggling said vision takes a very long press of a joystick, making it a long, conscious effort to turn it on and off; I found getting rid of it as quickly as I could just to admire my surroundings.
In the end, it’s impossible to deny that Far Cry: Primal offers up a tight little gameplay loop — hunt, scavenge, thrive — that never fails to deliver. It’s a great new take and renewal of the franchise, providing a game that I desperately want to jump back in to.
Far Cry: Primal will be available from 23 February on Windows PC, Xbox One and PS4.
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