Patrice Desilets reveals the Ancestors

Desilets is back to Reboot Develop 2017, to talk about the project he first mentioned at the same location in 2015, Ancestors. The difference is that the game will no longer be episodic in nature. What does remain is the idea that the game is still “a third-person action game set between 10 to two million years ago”.

Patrice Desilets is probably best known for his work on Assasins’ Creed and Assassins’ Creed 2, where he was the creative director. Later on, there was a fallout between Ubisoft and himself and he went on to found a new studio, Panache Digital. Their game, now in development for two years, should track human evolution, reliving the greatest moment of humankind’s development. Currently, it seemed to be set in Africa, with the “pre-alpha footage” suggesting apes, crocodiles, elephants and a whole lot more of wildlife.

Apart from it being a “third person action game” (similar to Assassins’ Creed, one would think) there is little known at the moment about Ancestors. Desilets did emphasize that this is “Ancestors 1”, so our best guess is that the game will continue to follow human evolution in potential sequels. Back in the day, Desilets said that they wanted “the player to relive the greatest moments of mankind with a documentary twist”.

The main change from the episodic setup seems to be the freedom that the players will have. Desilets goes on to say: “It’s a bigger game, a bigger world. It was hour to hour, now it’s open and I let the player tell their own stories. There are systems talking to each other, not me taking players by the hand. You’ll create the story of your own ancestors, and maybe it will be different than what science claims.”

Desilets also indicated that the game might be in a presentable condition “in months”. Whether already at the next E3 or Gamescom, it remains to be seen.