BUT ONLY THROUGH THE STRENGTH OF ITS SANDBOX.
Most open world games rise or fall on the strength of their sandbox, Primal is no exception. Having a compelling dynamic sandbox can cover a multitude of sins, and FC PRIMAL is a shining example of this. You see a compelling sandbox can make even a rudimentary fetch quest something so much more. Now too be fair to Ubisoft, most games are made up of missions that are variants of the core 3 types
- Kill X amount of X
- Go to X
- Fetch X and bring it back
These are the basic archetypes, and a dynamic sandbox can make these essentially generic and boring objectives far more colourful and engaging - so much more than they have any right to be! FAR CRY PRIMAL excels in this.
FAR CRY PRIMAL it's one of the most blatant under developed, rushed respray jobs ive seen in some time, there is really so little here that is new from a mechanical perspective.
I for one am sad that FC PRIMAL's mechanics, features and content is so under cooked, so minimal, so lacklustre -- because what's here is significant. Not in terms of content, but concept and how well it fits the FC series and critically how sophisticated it's sandbox is. I feel that FAR CRY as a series has hit its truest note, it's Swan song if you will.
FC PRIMAL succeeds, it's world is so lush, so engaging that even being fully aware of its impoverished game design it continues to captivate with moment after moment of glorious emergent unscripted gameplay.
FAR CRY PRIMAL makes you forget that it has no BLOCK ! Which is quite a feat......
FCP is a copy & paste rehash of the FC and AC series with mechanics that have fatigued gamers, If offers nothing new and had performance issues like unity did.
Would i buy another ubisoft title in the future nope not at this stage they have lost me as a customer.
Would i recommend this game not not even to my enemies.
It is hard to imagine that tribes such as the Izila would not employ somewhat disposable shields for example of woven material similar to the stuff used for their structural walls or even baskets and fish traps. I mean a shield is sort of a portable bit of wall or fence and the idea of carrying a bit of such protection around with you would not be a big stretch of any imagination. Moreover you can easily envision someone using items to hand as an adhoc blocking or shielding device when attacked such as a basket the rest is just simple extrapoliation.