Far Cry Primal is a first-person action game set in 10,000 BC during the transition from the Upper Paleolithic to the Mesolithic period. As part of the Far Cry series, it replaces modern firearms with prehistoric weapons including spears, clubs, and bows. Players take the role of Takkar, a Wenja tribesman who can tame wild animals such as sabertooth cats and wolves to use as companions in combat. The open world takes place in the fictional Oros valley and features a day-night cycle with dynamic wildlife behavior, tribal warfare, and resource crafting. The game's characters speak a constructed language based on reconstructed Proto-Indo-European.
While playing leaves players at the mercy of its time period due to the lack of firearms and weapons we've come to know in recent installments, instead players are treated to a leaner, and thrilling take on the series that works perfectly in its Stone Age setting. In any case, Far Cry Primal proves that looking back to the past can reveal an experience...
Despite being built on the skeleton of previous Far Cry games — its map is literally an overlay of Far Cry 4's! — Primal manages to stand apart from other open-world sandbox action games through the sheer novelty of its primitive setting. Although the emphasis on bow hunting and woolly mammoths can give a bit of a Skyrim vibe, that quickly fades as...
It’s amazing how neatly the Far Cry formula fits into such a wildly different setting.
Primal is worth playing, but only once you're hungry for more and only if you're prepared to plumb its depths.
I've had an enormous amount of fun playing this, obsessively clearing the map of icons, occasionally relenting and accepting I need to do one of the main quest threads to progress, riding around on the backs of mammoths, diving off cliffs into pools hundreds of feet below, wrestling crocodiles, being dazzled by sunsets, escaping labyrinthine caves,...
