Patrice Désilets, known for serving as creative director for the first three Assassin’s Creed games, is now in charge of adapting the story of human evolution to the third-person survival video game format. Désilets provides commentary over the new Ancestors trailer and emphasizes how individual playing styles can shape the trajectory of the story, specifically your skill tree and what he calls your “neuronal system.”

“Every single experience will be different because your path to the next species is your own, and depends on what you’re doing. I decided to kill the warthog. I managed to do it; I knew how. But the game didn’t tell me, so right now it is my own little story of how we became omnivorous.” Wait, so you can choose whether or not humans are omnivorous? Whoa.

Désilets also broke down the Generations mode, where you can take your character forward many years into the future to see your ancestors progress through their lives, from childhood to old age. It’s certainly an intriguing system and one I’ll be interested to see play out when the game launches later this month on PC.

Hyped for Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey? So are we, plus these other games coming in 2019 and beyond. (opens in new tab)

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Ancestors was announced way back in 2015, and it will be the first game Patrice Désilets has seen through to completion since 2010’s Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood (though he’s still planning to get back to Amsterdam 1666 (opens in new tab) one of these days). Read our extensive Ancestors: Humankind Odyssey hands-on (opens in new tab) to get a feel for how far the game has come in all those years. This new video also features a brief playthrough with Désilets and shines some new light on the game, including its inventive approach to fear, the most primordial of human feelings.

“Fear is really an important feature of the game,” Désilets explains. “You feel fear as soon as soon as you’re a baby and you’re far away from your clan, but also when you’re going to unknown territories. This is done through a system of dopamine. If you have enough dopamine you can go through your fear.

“Now I’ve got two choices: I can go back, stay in my little paradise. Or I can say no, let’s be curious and see what’s on the other side of this. And eventually the more knowledge I have about this area, eventually I’ll be able to go further, claim this territory, and conquer my fear.”

As long as there’s a layer of abstraction between you and what’s happening on-screen, even the best horror games (opens in new tab) will never make you feel true, mortal, turn-around-and-run dread. Turning fear into a mechanical limit on your exploration of the unknown is a novel alternative to the usual horror tricks and I’m eager to see how it plays.

Find even more to look forward to throughout the rest of the year and beyond in our list of new games 2019 (opens in new tab). Or see what’s coming up just next week with our latest Release Radar video.

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