Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey makes a monkey outta me
Biopunk fantasy
Patrice Desilets, former creative director on the first few Assassin's Creed games, has shown more of his ape-based survival game Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey [official site]. Desilets worked with ideas of aliens, conspiracy, and prophecy on Creed games but this is even wackier, positing that you and I were born as monkeys! What an imaginative world! It sounds like it'll trip across a string of monkeys and Eegahs to explore his wild fantasy history. Suspend your disbelief for a look at Africa ten million years ago (as if the Earth existed ten million years ago! you jokers) in this new trailer:
In Desilets's fantasy world (biopunk? it's probably called biopunk), those monkeys turn into people! Presumably one has to complete chores across an open world to unlock upgrades like Nair and posture lessons. I don't know, it's all still a bit of a mystery. Panache haven't even confirmed platforms yet but pssh, who skips PC these days? The blurb says:
"Our game is a third person action-adventure survival game. We want the player to relive the early story of mankind with a documentary twist. Humanity is one idea away from evolution or extinction..."
Desilets spoke a little more about Ancestors at the Reboot Develop conference today. They haven't archived the Twitch stream yet but GamesIndustry.biz took notes. It sounds like Ancestors will be similar to the games he's known for, but with monkeys and jungle.
"I do third-person games," GI quote Desilets as saying. "I don't do VR. I do Assassin's Creed, Prince of Persia type of games, and my next 15 games will be in the same vein - if I don't die in the meantime."
Panache had once planned to make it episodic but not any more. Still no firm word on when it'll launch. The end is nigh so they'd better hurry.
Panache are currently focusing on Ancestors, with 1666: Amsterdam on hold. That's the game Desilets started at THQ Montreal after leaving Ubisoft, only to see THQ collapse and Ubisoft buy the Montreal studio then fire him. After Desilets sent lawyers after Ubisoft, Ubi handed 1666 back to him.