Pros & Cons
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- Beautiful, highly detailed environments and creatures.
- Greater focus on melee and beast companions makes combat much more involved and personal.
- Excellent PC port.
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- Lacks impactful, eccentric NPCs, and story suffers for it.
- Gameplay doesn't evolve much past the first few hours and becomes repetitive.
With Far Cry Primal ($59.99), developer Ubisoft abandons all political pretenses and focuses on what made Far Cry stand out from its peers when the series debuted: the open-world sandbox. You play as a stone age hunter named Takkar, and your goal is to secure a safe haven for your people, the wandering Wenja tribe. The prehistoric realm of Oros is chock full of lush foliage, massive game animals, and an absurd amount of predatory beasts. Melee combat and beast companions set Primal apart from past Far Cry games and make exploration feel much more personal and engaging. It's one of the best PC games you can buy. However, your mileage may vary: If you love the open-world exploration and freedom, Primal has that in spades. But its story is simpler and more straightforward, so if you were hoping for eccentric villains and outlandish melodrama, Primal may leave you a tad disappointed. I played Far Cry Primal on PC, but the game is also available for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.
Conquering the Stone Age
The biggest change Primal makes to the Far Cry formula is the focus on melee weaponry. The left mouse button performs a quick attack, and holding the button unleashes a stronger blow. The right mouse button puts Takkar in throwing stance, which lets you toss a weapon at a target. This is ideal for hurling spears, but not so much for tossing clunky clubs. That said, throwing a club at an enemy can prove valuable in a pinch.
View All Arrows are your go-to projectiles for most encounters, but even they have their limits. Arrows have a clear trajectory and a very noticeable travel time, unlike the sniper-like arrows found in Rise of the Tomb Raider. Unless you are engaged in an ambush, you will need to lead your shots if you want to hit moving targets. Primal's requires a good amount of familiarity with the weapon, which I found very involving. Of course, as it is a console port, Primal also has an aim assist if you can't hit your mark, so you can always turn on that option if you are having trouble.
As a struggling caveman, you have very restricted inventory space. With only two clubs, two spears, and eight arrows at the start, there is a hard limit on what you can hunt or defend yourself against. The game lets you collect used arrows and weapons from people you kill, which slightly alleviates the inventory issue. However, if you cannot kill your target with what you have equipped, it might just run off with all your arrows and spears embedded in its hide, never to be seen again.
