STACK #136 Feb 2016

GAMES FEATURE

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Kings of the Stone Age

Ubisoft take the Far Cry universe primal. STACK chats with lead game designer, Clark Davies.

for an interesting new take on it – something fictional, but plausible,” explains lead game designer, Clark Davies. “The Stone Age fits really well into that philosophy, and the more we thought about it and researched it, we knew we were on to something. “We knew that going back to the Stone Age meant reinventing our core gameplay loop, too,” he continues. “Without access to guns or vehicles, we had tons of work to do. We created new mechanics as part of this, and first and foremost was the ability to tame all the predators in the world and use them as weapons. This alone will add new ways to engage with your enemy, and we call this 'The Beast Master'. “We also looked at the life of people in the Stone Age and translated that into our new core mechanics, from the ability to track animal blood trails, to new combat styles with, among many others, clubs, spears, [and] bows, while having the option of combining those with fire if you are up for it.” Fighting with the primitive weapons of the era will also provide a further challenge to players used to squeezing the trigger on an assault rifle or an RPG; actions synonymous with the Far Cry series. Using a spear or club certainly has its gameplay limitations, especially for players conditioned to the fast run and gun of first person shooters, and the studio’s answer to that problem was crafting. “When you think about it, there was no way to make this game without weapon crafting, which is another first for

W hen we last spoke with

Alex Hutchinson a month out from the release of Far

Cry 4 back in 2014, we pushed him for some of the other locations that the team had considered for the game. Although reluctant to disclose any information in case the studio decided to use them at a later date, we threw some ideas around the office that included the Middle East, Northern Europe and even Australia. However, no one familiar with the franchise could’ve possibly predicted that it wasn’t a geographical shift we should have been considering, but rather an entirely different era; one set some 12,000 years ago. Far Cry Primal isn’t the only game currently on the upcoming slate to feature a step back to more primitive times. Sony’s superb looking WiLD plays

GAMES

out during the Neolithic period, and although Horizon: Zero Dawn , another PS4 exclusive, is set 1,000 years in the future, it leans towards a prehistoric influence and aesthetic. But just exactly how did the studio swing from the present day back to the Stone Age? “We like to find those aspects of the real world where you find yourself in wild and unpredictable frontiers, and we look

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