Sony Computer Entertainment Far Cry Primal ps4

Welcome to the Stone Age, a time of omnipresent danger and limitless adventure, where giant mammoths and sabretooth tigers rule the Earth and humanity is at the bottom of the food chain. As the last survivor of your tribe, you will learn to craft a deadly arsenal, fend off fierce predators and outsmart enemies to conquer Oros and save Mankind.

Far Cry Primal

• Moving Forward By Looking Back by Jeff Cork
• Concept: Take Far Cry to the Mesozoic era, swapping guns and vehicles for clubs and tamed animals
• Graphics: Oros is a beautiful place to explore, and its inhabitants are impressively rendered
• Sound: Ubisoft Montreal made the bold (and effective) decision to keep all the dialogue in a primitive spoken language
• Playability: Controlling your hunter on foot is simple and precise, and riding a mammoth handles about as well as you'd expect
• Entertainment: Players who associate Far Cry with explosions and massive gunfights might find the setting disappointing, but it's one of my favorite entries in the series yet
• Replay: Moderately high

At its core, Far Cry is a series that drops players into a beautiful setting, gives them tools to survive, and then lets them loose. That's been true whether you're on the sands of a tropical island, hurtling down dirt roads on a jeep in Africa, or staying warm against the chill of a Himalayan snowstorm. Far Cry Primal has its own setting, but it marks the most drastic change of venues that Ubisoft Montreal has concocted so far - including the 80s nostalgia-play expansion for Far Cry 3, Blood Dragon. It's a gamble that pays off, providing some of the best immersive action that the series has to offer.

You play as Takkar, a warrior who is separated from his tribe after a mammoth hunt ends in disaster. He heads to Oros, a lush and bountiful landscape where he meets a fledgling tribe of hunter-gatherers called the Wenja. They're not alone, however, facing threats from the fire-wielding Izila and the brutish Udam. It's up to you to tap into Takkar's innate skills as a hunter to build the Wenja's settlement and fend off their attackers.

The slim narrative setup works in Primal's favor, creating an entry where, for the first time in the series, I didn't feel guilty wandering around instead of zeroing in on rescuing my kidnapped friends or liberating a nation. You're certainly trying to make Oros a peaceful place for your tribe to flourish, but gathering resources and hunting is as valuable to the cause thematically - and mechanically - as is mainlining the story missions.

Don't expect any time-travel shenanigans; Takkar doesn't stumble upon a crate filled with firearms or other highly anachronistic cheats. His arsenal is era-appropriate, consisting of upgradable clubs, spears, and bows that you craft by scouring the world for materials. It's bound to bum out players who enjoy driving C4-laden trucks at outposts in the other Far Cry games, but I didn't miss the comparative lack of explosive action. My favorite Far Cry moments center on the feeling of hiding in the brush, armed with a bow as I size up a cluster of enemies or a base. That's still here, even if your arrows don't have aluminum shafts.