French developers Panache Digital Games released a new trailer for Ancestors: The Humankind Odysssey, which is set to arrive as a timed exclusive on the Epic Games Store for PC on August 27th. The game will launch later in the year in December for the Xbox One and PlayStation 4.

The three minute trailer covers the core mechanics of how to evolve your prime-apes and make them smarter so that they can survive. This includes picking up sticks and lifting rocks, attacking boars, and eating different things. Every time you complete an action it opens up a new synaptic firing within the neural stem network, allowing you to learn new abilities and adapt those abilities for the next generation of monkeys to come.

You can check out the trailer below to get an idea of how the skill system works and how you unlock new skills.

So in some small way it’s kind of cool that they included some tiny bits of neurophysiology into the basis of the game’s skill tree. It makes sense and in some ways does mirror the way people learn and evolve in real life… only it’s for monkeys.

Ultimately the game is about learning how to survive and finding new ways to survive as you grow your skills, expand your neural network, and help your ancestors adapt to the environment, avoid predators, and sustain your genealogical lineage.

I wonder if this classifies the game as edutainment?

Anyway, the core gameplay is open-ended and emergent, so no two players will have the exact same experience. I imagine this will open it up to a lot of Let’s Play bait as different YouTubers attempt to find the most effective ways to evolve and grow their monkeys.

The core gameplay consists of exploration, eating, climbing, fighting, and gathering. I can’t imagine this game being all that interesting to play for more than a couple of hours at most, but we’ll see what they pull out of the hat when it drops on August 27th.

Again, it’s an Epic Games Store exclusive on PC, so don’t expect to play it on Steam any time soon. Private Division will also publish Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey on PS4 and Xbox One this upcoming December. For more info you can visit the official website.