How To Play

This article is a stub. You can help Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey Wiki by expanding it.

Introduction

Ancestors: Humankind Odyssey puts you in the skin of one of our earliest Ancestors (referred to at the start as "The Missing Link"). You objectives is to guide your clan through the generations and ages to evolve, the game challenging you to be quicker than our real life ancestry.

The game gives very little heading as to what to do, outside of some triggered cutscenes that give vague objectives, and the main interest of the game lies in exploring possibilities and learning by yourself. This wiki will basically spoil mechanics that are designed to be discovered by yourself, and is more aimed at people that are already deep in the game and want to complete it. Reading this wiki thus risk damaging your experience. Nevertheless, if you still want to read, we will do our best to explain things so that you better understand things that you either missed or didn't understand.

One of the most important and deceiving point of the game is that you should not attach yourself to your character. Ancestor allows and even encourage you to switch characters often, either in a same generation (you can switch to any other ape of your clan by inspecting them), or through the ages. Certain skills can only be obtained through the acquisition of Genetic Mutations, which are discovered through birthing children, and activated through evolution. Moreover, your character will often die, either through accidents (a fall from a branch is quick to happen), or natural means (Giant Tigers being an example of Natural Mean). On the other hand, those deaths will rarely doom your clan, and the game provides you with means to expand it should you lose members through the spawning of wandering apes that can be "recruited".

As we stressed before, the main gameplay resides in exploring the world, its items and vistas, and trying various actions that will generate Neuronal Power and unlock new Neurons, which in turn unlock new Neurons and actions themselves.

(The game clock seems to be running during the introductory part of the game, with the child, but more tests will need to be done. Reader is invited to contribute to this wiki.)

State of Health

Health, Stamina, and Energy

The overall wellness of a Hominid is determined by 3 values.

The red circle shows your Hominid's health, which is depleted by incurring injuries and age. A Hominid's health value determines the maximum amount of stamina it can have. In the game, each new species has increased Health from the last, this is known as Life Expectancy. Pregnant female Hominids have increased health compared to other hominids.

The yellow circle indicates a Hominid's stamina, which is depleted by intense activity and regained by eating, sleeping, and drinking. The stamina value determines the maximum amount of energy a Hominid can have.

The green circle measures the energy levels of a Hominid, which is depleted by basic actions and regained by taking a moment to catch your breath. Energy levels are depleted by every action a Hominid takes, from walking, climbing, swimming, and altering items.

Depletion Hierarchy

While playing the game, the first status circle to be used is the green energy circle. If the Hominid uses more than 50% of his/her energy reserves at once, some stamina will be depleted but can be regained by resting for a moment.

When the hominid runs out of energy, stamina will be spent to move. By the time this happens, the Hominid will be trudging very heavily and moving quite slowly. At this point, it is heavily advised to stop and rest at the first chance you get.

If you decide to push your poor ape past exhaustion and deplete all of your stamina, health will begin to drain. At this point you are obviously trying to kill your ape but if you stop and rest, some stamina and energy will be regained, however the health that drained will not regenerate.

Fear

You will have to conquer your fear of the Unknown if venturing too far from your camp with an adult clan member.

Use your senses ( Vision, Smell and Hearing ) to rationalize your surroundings and then finally seek out the white circle floating around somewhere. Tip : if you cannot reach the white orb during climbing, go down to the ground and retry somewhere else.

The correct orb will emit small white electric arcs if you are near, any plain white orb is a mirage and can not be caught.

As soon as you enter the light you will be able to master your fear, opening up a new area of the map for your clan ( and auto-saving your progress ).

Panic

If you encounter a predator and fail to either intimidate him or escape, you may experience panic. In panic your control of your selected clan member is minimal.

No buff or solution known. Flee, you fool !

Taking Care of your needs

Hunger

While time flies by and you proceed your tasks, your ape will start to feel hungry over time. Hunger is a stamina Killer. Stamina will turn faster yellow and then Red if Hunger is high. (further testing is needed to confirm 100%)

Hunger can be reduced by eating different edible goods. More information can be found on Items in the Food section.

Thirst

Thirst will occur over time and will lead to losing stamina faster like hunger does.

Hunger and thirst will probably lead to a faster depletion of stamina. (further testing needed to confirm.)

You can reduce Thirst by consuming some Foods or Liquids seen on Items in the Food section.

Sleep

The need of sleep will rise over time and will grow faster if your hunger or thirst are high. If the need for sleep rises a certain point the ape will get sleepy which gets indicated by a screen slightly fading black on and of again as if your character was struggling to keep their eyes open.

While the screen fades black also hearing will be impaired and the "ping" sound for successful completion of tasks will not be heard anymore.

It is suggested to call it a Day and go to a sleeping spot. If urgent and far away from base you also can lie down on a safe area and sleep.

Buffs

Buffs give you an extra layer of protection from all the various afflictions (debuffs) that you may come across. All buffs runs on a timer which will eventually run out and once again leave you vulnerable to that particular affliction. You can make these timers last longer by doing Neuronal Development as well as getting Genetic Mutations in the branch of Metabolism.

• 

  Cold Protection

• Wound shield.png

  Trauma Protection

• Venom shield.png

  Venom Protection

• Poison shield.png

  Sickness Protection

• 

  Bleeding Protection

• Hot shield.png

  Overheating Protection

De-buffs

De-buffs affect you negatively by making you slower, distorting your vision and impairing hearing, as well as other afflictions depending on the De-buff you've acquired. De-buffs are mitigated, or healed, by eating medicinal plants, either as is or grinded into medicine paste. There are two types of de-buffs, normal and severe. The severe de-buffs will amplify that particular de-buffs effects. There are 12 de-buffs as shown below.

• Cold ico.png

  Cold

• Broken ico.png

  Broken Bone

• Venom ico.png

  Poison

• Poison ico.png

  Food Sickness

• 

  Bleeding

• Hot minor ico.png

  Overheating

• 

  Severe Cold

• Broken major ico.png

  Severe Broken Bone

• Venom major ico.png

  Severe Poison

• Poison major ico.png

  Severe Food Sickness

• 

  Severe Bleeding

• Hot major ico.png

  Severe Overheating

Skills

You have a pallet of different skills to perform on your journey to better evolution. Exploration of your skills and possibilities is the main quest in Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey.

Try to figure out as much as possible on your own.

Neuronal Development

In Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey, skills are replaced by neurons, all unlocking new abilities or improvements to already acquired ones, and are organised in different categories. For more information, go to the page Neuronal Development.

Altering

Main article: Altering

Alteration can be performed after achieving the First "Motoric" Skill on the Neuronal path on the upper left. To use that skill, transfer an object from your main hand to the other hand, then press the button in the contextual UI. Alteration can be perfected by learning and adding neuronal energy to the "Motoric" skills, this will give higher success rates and lower the time required.

Ape altering a dead branch

Evolution

If you progress from one stage of evolution onwards to the next, you will not only change your clan members :

There is a chance you will also be moved on to a different starting location, and you will not keep your stockpiles or found treasures, although they will remain at your old settlement and can be collected if you return there.