Set to launch early next year, Far Cry 5 is, if you will pardon the phrasing, a far cry from the series' most recent offering, Far Cry Primal. Still, the team learned a lot while working on the latter that they've been applying to the former, including the ability to call on the help of AI-controlled companions.

In an interview with GameSpot, Far Cry 5 Creative Director Dan Hay spoke about the game's development, covering everything from how the team handled religious cults to how players will be able to tackle the game's various tasks throughout virtual Montana. They also discussed your ability to call on mercenaries for help in those missions, with Hay explaining that the idea came from the development of Far Cry Primal.

In Far Cry Primal, the player was able to tame various beasts in order to assist them in hunting, gathering, taking down bigger beasts or enemy tribes. Developing AI for those critters apparently got the team at Ubisoft Montreal thinking about how they could take that process one step further. So instead of the typical Far Cry formula of the player taking on insurmountable odds solo, this time you'll have some friendly faces to call on in a pinch.

There's the cultist-killing, gun-grabbing dog, obviously, but you can also get assistance from folks like a local crop pilot, an armed priest and a woman who doesn't take too kindly to seeing her town overrun by a bunch of terrorists. Folks like these will be available to lend a hand, presumably after you've met them and done a few things to befriend them within the game world.

So long as none of this turns into glorified escort missions or problems where you have to worry about your AI pals making things worse, we're all for it. The Far Cry games are great, but they can often feel a bit lonely when it's just you versus a seemingly never-ending sea of baddies. Just having a dog wander around with you will go a long way in addressing those issues, and that goes double when said dog just so happens to bring you a fully-loaded AK-47 in the middle of a heated firefight.

So what do you think, readers? Are you looking forward to having some company in Far Cry 5 or do you plan on keeping things solo? Let us know in the comments below.

E3 2016 is just a couple of months away and, as of today, Ubisoft has made their plans for the big show known. Get ready to learn more about the publisher’s plans for the next year on June 13.

As is standard practice for the E3 games conference, publishers have started announcing that their press conferences will be held the Monday before the show actually kicks off. This year, that date falls on June 13, with the show floor opening from June 14-16.

Ubisoft usually has their press conference in the middle of the day on that Monday and, this year, they’ll be following suit. Ubisoft announced through its official twitter feed today that its press conference will begin with a pre-show at 12:30 p.m., followed by the full press conference at 1 p.m.

Since Microsoft has already announced it will hold an E3 press conference that same morning, we’re guessing that Sony will soon reveal a Monday evening showing that, again, would keep in line with previous years.

This slot is actually a couple of hours earlier than Ubisoft’s usual E3 schedule, with the publisher sliding down to fill in the space left vacant by EA, who announced they won’t have a booth at this year’s show. EA will be present at E3, though not in the traditional sense. Instead of being part of the big show, they’re hosting their own event through the first several days of E3, including a press conference and large blocks of time from June 12-14 when folks can play their games.

As for Ubisoft, we imagine The Division will have some sort of presence on the press conference stage, perhaps discussing DLC, but it will likely be joined by a number of upcoming games from the publisher.

South Park: The Fractured But Whole was revealed during last year’s show, so it seems likely that we’ll get some additional details during the 2016 press conference. Also, there’s Watch Dogs 2, the new Ghost Recon game, Wildlands, and For Honor. Since the Assassin’s Creed team is taking some additional time to work on the next major game in the series, we don’t expect to see any wrist-blades making an appearance this year. Then again, maybe we’ll see something on a smaller Assassin’s Creed project or perhaps even a look at the motion picture.

Let us know what you’re looking forward to seeing out of the Ubisoft E3 press conference in the comments section below. Are you most excited for something listed above, or do you perhaps have your fingers crossed for a revival series or maybe a big surprise? Give us your predictions.

Some really interesting facts have popped up in an article about one of the divisions of Ubisoft a lot of people probably didn't even know existed. It's called the User Data Research Group, and they're a division of Ubisoft that specifically tracks user feedback and establishes data acquisition based on in-game choices made by the player.

Game Informer did a thorough breakdown of how the User Data Research Group works and how it affected the means of traversal in Ubisoft's latest Far Cry Primal.

It turns out that when they had actual gamers come in and playtest Far Cry Primal during the early stages of development, they found out that getting around the map took too long. At the higher levels gamers were getting frustrated trying to get from one end of the map to other or from one mission segment to the other, in between fast travel.

Considering that Far Cry Primal takes place in the Mesolithic era, it meant that vehicles, wingsuits, gliders and helicopters were out of the question. So how did they solve the problem with allowing players to travel around the map faster? Well, they had to implement beast riding, even though it wasn't even going to be in the game.

The solution was borne out of the need to give players some way to quickly get around the map, and traveling around on foot wasn't cutting it.

Since they already had Beast Taming in Far Cry Primal the next logical step was simply to add Beast Riding. So certain animals were giving the ability to carry the player around at quick speeds so that they could traverse Oros quickly and efficiently.

According to the Game Informer article, Ubisoft is using this method of playtesting with actual gamers to their advantage. They don't consider it focus group testing since it has nothing to do with how the game is being marketed, and it's not quality assurance testing since they don't care about bugs or glitches. The idea is to get feedback on what actual gamers think about the game and how they can work to improve the gameplay experience and make it more streamlined to be... fun.

The highlight of this method isn't just that Ubisoft is getting direct feedback on their upcoming games, but it's that the developers are made aware of the choices they can make for improving the game. According to the article the User Data Research division does not mandate that the developers implement whatever data they gather from the playtesters...the data is simply there as an option for developers to explore in developing the game.

This method of adapting the game to player feedback has been applied to titles like The Division, where they modified how skills and information is displayed to better help inform gamers; or The Crew where mobile upgrades and customization was made possible instead of constantly having to head back to the headquarters to make changes to the vehicles.

It's an interesting approach to making AAA games, and Ubisoft definitely isn't shy about experimenting. In the case of Far Cry Primal the user feedback experiment actually paid off and the travel-by-beast feature turned out to be one of the game's highlights. Now if only they can scale back on the microtransactions and the rushed releases, they just might win back a lot of favoritism with the general gaming community.

If you’ve become attached to the very helpful HUD in Far Cry Primal, well this new update will change all of that. Because after the update, players will have the option to turn the HUD off completely. The new update, coming to PS4 and Xbox One, will also include game fixes like improved difficulty of a mission and improvements to the AI navigation. And thanks to ShackNews, we’ve got the entire collection of patch notes for you.

Stability & Performance

Improved performance and stability

Fixed low occurrence specific crashes

Gameplay

Improved the overall difficulty of a mission

Fixed an edge case issue where the XP is not updated

Fixed issue where the kills from companion animals does not update under specific condition

Fixed a bug where a weapon switched automatically when using the speed boost

Fixed a rare issue where the player is vulnerable when trying to heal

Fixed a low occurrence issue where the player is unable to loot

Fixed an issue where the player can be teleport outside the mission zone when riding any animals

Fixed issues with Hardsave not functional if the user performs specific action

Fixed a trophy update issue when taming one of the beasts

Fixed a player’s movement issue when capturing an outpost

Fixed a 2 seconds freeze when player pauses the game during few specific animations

Fixed a waterfall effect issue during a cinematic

Fixed an edge case issue where the player cannot pet smaller companions

Fixed an issue where the “heal beast” and “ride” actions does not always work on sloping terrain

Fixed a blood trail visual issue when using the hunting vision

Lighting and FX

Fixed some lighting issues in specific areas

Wildlife and AI

Improved the AI navigation in a specific outpost

Fixed low occurrence navigation issues with the companions

Fixed some edge case animation issues with animals and companions

Missions/Activities/World

Fixed Missions and Activities blockers when performing specific actions

Fixed few spawning issues with the players and specific animals

Fixed an issue where the player can complete one of the mission twice

Fixed issues where the player can’t climb a vine when performing certain actions

Fixed edge case issues where the player can remain stuck if he interacts with stones and plants

Fixed an issue where the player is unable to fast travel

Fixed objective issues when performing specific actions

Fixed edge cases navigation issues in the World

Menu/UI/Map

Added an option to not show enemies in the minimap

Added a button to disable the HUD option

Added new tutorial page to match description and picture

Fixed an issue where a button is misplaced in the reward stash

Fixed some displaying issues with the HUD and the World Map

Fixed an issue where a fail prompt does not appear under specific conditions

Fixed an issue where the XP prompt remains present on the HUD

Fixed icons issues in specific activities

Fixed few minor issues where a waypoint is not displayed properly

Fixed an issue where the outpost counter does not update

Added a visual guideline for one of the achievements

Audio

Fixed a sound issue with burning fire during the playgo

Added a missing SFX during a specific Quick Time Event attack

Added a missing Audio line during a cinematic

Localization/Text

Fixed issues when subtitles go past menu borders in some languages

Fixed an issue where collectibles text can be overlapped by an event notification

Added missing subtitles when skipping a cinematic

Fixed incorrect messages appearing on screen after specific actions

Size

PS4: 577MB

XBONE: 570MB

The main concern out of this patch is, of course, the ability to turn off the HUD. This way, players can feel more like they are in prehistoric times without something to guide them through the ancient wilderness. If you want more information, you can check out the official website.

It’s no secret that many video games that have been turned into feature films have not been the greatest movies. Some of them have been downright failures. But I believe there are some games that are destined to be turned into movies, and would finally break the curse that hangs over all video game movie adaptations. 

1. Until Dawn

It certainly helps that Until Dawn is pretty much a movie in itself already. There hasn’t been a really good slasher film since the Scream series in the late 90’s, but I think Until Dawn would be the perfect reintroduction of an era of slasher films. While slasher movies may appear to all be the same, Until Dawn could pull elements from all of the slasher movies of the past where they will all culminate into one massive and thrilling slasher film. It’s just really hard to go wrong with a slasher film, especially with actors like the ones used in Until Dawn. 

2. Life Is Strange

Many who follow my articles just knew this game was going to make the list. You’re going to notice that a lot of games on this list are going to be narrative heavy—that’s only because the narrative games would be pretty easy to adapt into a movie. I could go on and on about which Hollywood actors I would want to play Max and Chloe from Life Is Strange, but the real prize here is the story. In a film adaptation, the director would probably choose to make a sequel to the story in the game rather than retell the story. Since the game is already enough like the movie, it would be boring to make another movie on the same story. But the narrative elements and the character development in this game is just too good to pass up for a movie. 

3. Far Cry Primal

This game might seem like an odd choice to you, but just think of the possibilities. Because the game is so open-world, the narrative is pretty loose. Therefore, there’s a lot a director could do with the story. It’s been awhile since Hollywood has seen a really good prehistoric-age film; the last one I can think of is actually 10,000 B.C., does anyone else remember that film? I think Far Cry Primal opens up a window of opportunity for a director to really run with an original idea, something that hasn’t been as wrung out as something like zombie apocalypse movies. 

4. Star Citizen

Even though this game hasn’t even been finished yet (going on its fifth year of development now), the idea of having a film completely set in space (that isn’t Star Wars or Star Trek…) is pretty exciting. Whatever happened to action-packed, alien-butt-kicking, space-themed movies like Starship Troopers? Or, speaking of Chris Roberts, remember the plucky little film based on the game Wing Commander starring Freddie Prinze Jr.? Yeah, that happened. So it only makes sense to make the most epic film adaptation of Star Citizen, complete with its all-star cast. Strange, lost-in-space movies like Gravity, The Martian and Moon are just too psychological for me. I want straight up action; ships crashing, missiles blowing, aliens attacking, cold, hard action.  Just keep in mind, this article is merely opinion and is full of ideas that probably won’t ever come true, but we’d love to hear what games you think would make a fantastic blockbuster in the comments below. 

Far Cry Primal is the next chapter in the Far Cry series and takes place in 10,000 B.C., a time when guns and other high-tech weapons didn’t exist. Instead, all you’ve gone are natural resources and a trusty bow and arrow to help you survive the brutal wilderness as you work to build the Wenja civilization. But surviving in Far Cry Primal isn’t always so easy. Here are six tips to help you survive the prehistoric age.

1. Fire Should Be Your Best Friend

Fire has many uses in Far Cry Primal. I can tell you that I don’t know what I would’ve done without it. First of all, fire can be used as a weapon and it is so useful. If you want to use fire against an enemy, you can light your weapons on fire using animal fat. And you get animal fat from hunting. For example, you can choose to ignite your arrow and then shoot an arrow at an enemy, which immediately puts him down. But you have to be careful because sometimes you can also ignite the area around you. I accidentally burned down a man’s hut trying to kill a boar. Another use for fire is guidance through the dark at night. You’ll be running around a lot at night to hunt and find rare resources and more often you’ll get attacked at night too. Fire not only guides you through the thick forests, but also can be used as a weapon against vicious animals like wolves. They won’t mess with you if you wave wire at them.

2. Use Hunter Vision

I can’t stress enough how important it is to get used to using your Hunter Vision. During the day, everything can look the same and animals might blend in with the grass around them. At night, it’s even harder to see things lurking in the dark, so your Hunter Vision will help in not only hunting, but getting you around at night. A lot of times in the day when I am doing missions, I won’t use Hunter Vision too much because there’s not much of a need for it. But don’t forget, Hunter Vision will also show you clues that you might not see in the daytime, like footprints. It’s always a good idea to give it a click every now and then.

3. Tame Bigger And More Violent Beasts When You Can

The more you improve your beast taming capabilities, the more powerful you will be as a hunter. The first animal you get to tame in the game is a wolf and even having that wolf around greatly improves your hunting capabilities. When I was too lazy, I’d just whistle ahead and let my wolf take care of the couple enemies. So you want to keep up with upgrading skills and finding new and bigger enemies to tame. You might have grown attached to that wolf, but trust me, you’ll be even more attached to something like the sabre tooth tiger after you see what he can do to an enemy.

4. Don’t Forget About Your Owl

I noticed while playing that it’s easy to forget you can use your owl to gain insight into what lies ahead. And if there are enemies nearby, the owl can drop bombs on them or command a beast to attack. This way, you don’t even have to come in contact with the enemies yourself. So don’t forget to use your owl to scout out the area up ahead. Because one day you just may be glad you did.

5. Strike Enemies At Night

Enemies tend to rest or sleep at night and are left vulnerable, so it’s always best to attack enemies at night. This way you can get the jump on them and catch them by surprise so they aren’t ready for you. It also helps that you are cloaked in darkness and can sneak around the forest with ease. Even though the night may be more dangerous to skulk around in, sometimes it can be way more rewarding.

6. Choose Your Battles Wisely

One mistake you are surely bound to make while playing as Takkar in Far Cry Primal is approaching a large predator thinking you’ve got the balls to get it distracted so you can tame it. Most of the time, this won’t go well for you. I made the mistake of thinking I could take out a bear when I first started traversing the area. My little club did very little damage and the beast took me—and my wolf— out in a matter of seconds. Swallow your pride and have the decency to avoid the fights you know you can’t win.

Hopefully these tips will help you survive a little longer in the prehistoric world of Far Cry Primal.

Far Cry Primal opens with a brutal scene of an animal attack as you see Takkar try to help his companions. It’s maybe the best way Far Cry Primal could have opened, because after that initial scene, I was hooked. There are many elements that make Far Cry Primal one of the first games released in 2016 that I couldn’t bring myself to put down. Before reading, check out the trailer first.

Far Cry Primal follows the story of Takkar, an unknown hunter who later becomes the leader of a tribe of Wenja people, and you complete quests and overcome hardships to grow the civilization. It’s a story of survival as you take control of prehistoric beasts to aid you in your quests and bring relief and a safe haven to the rest of the Wenja people.

The first thing I always focus on in a video game is the story. While the narrative isn’t the center of Far Cry Primal, it’s still very visible as you make your way around the map. Although sometimes I felt like I lost the point of the main story as I had gotten sidetracked rescuing some Wenja and bringing them to my village. I would stand with my tamed wolf and think, “Okay, now what was I supposed to be doing?” But in these kinds of open-world games, if they are made well enough, narrative isn’t necessarily the center of attention. There are so many things to do in Far Cry Primal—like I can’t tell you how many times I went off to go after one objective and I found myself sidetracked going after another. And in instances like this, it doesn’t bother me that I am not sticking to one specific, strong storyline. It’s almost like an exception to my narrative rule. If I can wander around the map and spend my time taming beasts and hunting and upgrading instead of progressing through the story, I’ll be pretty content. Plus, each quest you find along the way has its own story, and possibly a piece to add to the main storyline as well.

Maybe the best part about playing Takkar is gaining the ability to tame beasts. The first beast you are able to tame is a wolf and once you have a wolf by your side, hunting suddenly isn’t as complicated as it once was with just a bow and arrow. And let me tell you, I really sucked at sneaking up on animals. But with a tamed beast, all you have to do is point to the animal and whistle at your beast and he’ll run after it and kill it for you. This helped me finally nab boar’s skin because those little things are so hard to catch.

As part of the taming beast ability, you also get your very own owl, which is used as the eyes of your expedition. With your owl, you can zero in on an enemy ahead and demand the beast go after them without ever having to get near enough to get hurt. When you’ve unlocked the ability, your own can also drop little bombs to attack enemies. I didn’t realize during gameplay that I needed to build more huts in my village in order to unlock the ability to tame more kinds of animals, so I stupidly went after a bear and tried to tame it. Let’s just say that didn’t end well. But as you grow your village of Wenja and build more huts, you get more experience, more items and unlock more abilities. And when you finally are able to tame prehistoric animals like sabre tooth tigers, you feel on top of the world and totally unstoppable.

One thing I noticed about Far Cry Primal was the impeccable sound design. There was a lot of detail put into the design of things like the crackling of the fire and the sound of the water as you swim through it. Many people probably don’t stop to listen to the sound in a game, but I like to just in case anything might stand out. It’s always refreshing to hear a sound effect and try to guess how that designer created the effect.

Sometimes in games like this, there’s a very complicated menu and a process in switching weapons or upgrading weapons, but in Far Cry Primal I found it pretty easy to do all of those things. Even in the heat of battle with an enemy, I can quickly change weapons or whistle to my tamed beast to attack the attacker. I can always appreciate a simple combat system because if it gets too complicated, I find that I get bored and don’t want to play anymore.

Weapon choices are varied and I have found that I’ve fallen in love with the club. Call me old-fashioned, but nothing beats a good hit over the head. The is great for being sneaky or hunting, but my combat style lacks planning and involves running in with guns blazing, so of course I’ll enjoy the club more than the bow. I struggle with pulling the bow out, lining up the shot and taking down the enemy accurately while being ambushed by a group of three or more. The club is much easier and gets the job done quickly—and brutally.

Hunting is a huge part of Far Cry Primal and if you haven’t found a solid method for hunting animals, you’re going to struggle. Animals skins are needed to build more huts and grow your village, which unlocks more abilities and weapons, while the meat keeps you and your beast healthy and alive. Plus, you’ll need items to create more clothing for cold areas, as I later found out. Hunting can also be really, really fun. At first, I felt horrible for taking down animals like a dhole, which looks like a cross between a dog and a hyena, but as I killed more animals, I became more comfortable with the idea of killing. I even beat on the shell of a turtle, which got me nothing. And now, my beast and I get sidetracked almost all the time during a mission and I end up hunting a pack of boar or creating an objective to get a wolf skin to finish another hut. I could hunt for hours and not get bored, it’s just that much fun. How big of an animal can I kill next? What are my limits? The Far Cry Primal version of me is very, very different than the actual me, that’s for sure.

If I had any issues with the game, I might suggest a multiplayer mode. I know this has already been explored and explained, but can you image hunting in your own pack with your friends? Or working together to rescue the Wenja? So maybe not an emphasis on the deathmatch portion of multiplayer gameplay, but on cooperative play. I would also suggest, but am almost hoping, that dinosaurs come into the mix later on. I think that would absolutely complete the Far Cry Primal experience.

Far Cry Primal does a fantastic job of not only telling the story in a prehistoric era, but unlocking a primal part of the player as well. It’s almost like your survival instincts kick into high gear as you push Takkar through mission after mission to grow the Wenja people and create a safe and prosperous civilization. And it’s a game I’ll probably be playing for the next month, maybe longer.

This game is being reviewed on the PS4.

Players: 1

Platforms:PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows

Developer: Ubisoft Montreal

Publisher: Ubisoft

ESRB: Mature

Rating:

Far Cry games have a reputation for being beautifully brutal—and players have responded well. It seems with each passing year and each new installment, Far Cry games get a little crazier and a little more experimental. But with Far Cry Primal, I think they’ve really outdone themselves. In order to introduce the concept of the new game, check out the newest trailer below.

1. Become A Beastmaster

Maybe the best part about Far Cry Primal is the opportunity to be able to tame wild, prehistoric beasts and ride them like horses as a Beastmaster. The main character, Takkar, has the ability to tame beasts which can include sabre-tooth tigers, dire wolves, cave lions, cave bears, leopards, jaguars, wooly mammoths, wooly rhinos, terror birds, andrewsarchus, paraceratherium, enteledonts, propaleoatherium, giant sloth and gastornis. Yeah, that’s quite a list. Some of those animals’ names are even hard to pronounce. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a game that was set in prehistoric times that impressed me. That particular time period is not my favorite. I’ve always been more of a medieval gal, but I can honestly say Far Cry Primal looks so very intriguing. It has an almost RPG element where you get to live this life through Takkar in the brutal prehistoric times, where it was more important than anything to survive. If you want the full rundown of all of the tameable animals in Far Cry Primal, you can check out this video I found below.

2. There Is No Limit To Brutality

I can always appreciate a video game when it delivers a unique experience. In Far Cry Primal’s case, how often do you get to play in the brutal prehistoric time period? Not only can you tame and command your beasts to tear apart your enemy, but you can also take hold of prehistoric weapons like a bow and arrow, a spear and more. What’s great about creating video games in this time period is there is no mercy for those who are weak. There is only survival. And if you can’t survive, you will fall behind and die. I don’t understand why more video games haven’t created a true gameplay experience in the prehistoric age, but I’m sure glad Far Cry Primal has taken advantage of it.

3. You'll Get A Bird's Eye View

And finally, Takkar has an owl that can be utilized in the game in a way that is different from the tameable animals. The owl’s purpose is to be your eyes on the area. Takkar can send up the owl to get a perspective in the surroundings from the air, something that is typically not possible in video games since characters are usually played from the ground. Flying around in the sky as the owl, you can zoom in on the happenings below and mark a target for your tamed animals to attack. It’s maybe one of the most useful tools in all of Far Cry Primal.

There’s probably a lot I’m not covering about why to get excited for Far Cry Primal, but it’s just enough to tease you into trying out the game. I enjoy when a developer takes a unique idea and runs with it, but the only thing missing now is dinosaurs.

Far Cry Primal will be releasing on February 23 onto PS4, Xbox One and PC.

Ubisoft released a new trailer for Far Cry Primal ahead of the game's launch on February 23 for the Xbox One, PS4 and PC. The “101” trailer is nearly five minutes long featuring a look at all of the most important content featured in the upcoming, stone age survival action game.

Shacknews rolled through some of the contents of the trailer, which includes looking at the combat, the mounts, the beast taming and the different factions featured in the game. You can check it out in the trailer below.

The trailer does a step-by-step walkthrough of some of the features gamers will encounter when playing Ubisoft's Far Cry Primal. This includes being able to traverse through a large open world in the Mesolithic period while attempting to restore the prominence of the people that lead character Takkar belongs to.

Players will have to venture around the game's open world and complete quests, take over regions and dwindle the forces of the two major rival factions, both of whom want nothing more than to either enslave or eat Takkar's people.

I'm mostly curious how Takkar manages to escape the leaders of both tribes when they want him dead so bad? I'm sure there's a reasonable way for Takkar to get out of both instances that don't involve some sort of deux ex machina device. Anyway, the game is probably now best known for being the first Far Cry game that does not contain modern day weaponry.

As the trailer above depicts, players will have to rely on stone age equipment that they can upgrade in order to defeat enemies and progress through the game. This includes primitive bow and arrow sets, spears and other crude clubbing weapons.

Ubisoft, to their credit, did get creative with some of the weapons, such as allowing players to dispense of enemies using bee bombs, which is funny to watch in action. In fact, it's even possible to use Takkar's owl to do air raids on enemy camps and drop the bombs onto them from above.

Speaking of animals... one of the special abilities that players can master in the game is that of a beast master. This allows Takkar to use bait to lure in dangerous animals and tame them. For those of you wondering what happens in Far Cry Primal when attempts are made to tame an animal outside of Takkar's skill level? Well, they'll attack and kill anything in their path.

It's possible to tame up to 17 different animals, some of which can be used as mounts to travel around the open world. Some of the animals that can be tamed includes saber tooth tigers, bears, small wooly mammoths, and jaguars to name but a few.

I haven't seen anything in Far Cry Primal that has won me over, but for gamers who want a single-player adventure that is similar to ARK: Survival Evolved but without the other prehistoric dinosaurs or the sci-fi weapons, you can look for Ubisoft's Mesolithic survival game to launch on February 23 for the PS4, Xbox One and PC.

Would you want to spend the night in a cave in the middle of winter? Creators of Far Cry Primal seem to think so. As a clever and perplexing marketing ploy, Far Cry Primal is offering one lucky winner and a friend the chance—of a lifetime, apparently—to spend the night in a cave.

According to the Eurogamer, if you send out a Tweet to @FarCryPrimal and mention the hashtag, #cavebnb, you’ll be considered for the contest. But don’t forget to also state why you think you should win. And you’ll have to be clever and concise with the amount of characters you have left, but you can get as creative as you want with gifs and memes, too. Check out the trailer below for the contest.

As you can see in the trailer, you really would be spending the night in a cave in the woods. Whether or not the cave shown is actually the cave in unknown, but it’ll be a cave nonetheless.

I know some video game companies have gone to extravagant lengths to market a game, but this is the wildest one I’ve heard of recently. Winners will get a 3 day, 2 night stay at the Pyrénées area (Ouzous) in France, but it won’t all be spent in a cave. The first night will be spent in a hotel at the Lourdes city. The second day, you’ll learn some survival techniques before finally getting the chance to spend the night in the cave with your companion of choice.

Though it’s pretty tempting to win a contest sent out by Ubisoft and get to live out Far Cry Primal, it honestly really is not that appealing. I’m not much of an outdoorsy type, though, so my opinion really doesn’t mean much. But it almost makes you wonder what other marketing ploys video game companies will come out with to top this? The contest will run today through January 21. You can view the entire list of contest rules here.

Ubisoft has made it known that the upcoming first-person, Mesolithic survival game, Far Cry Primal, won't feature multiplayer modes. It seems totally odd given the fact that the game seemed destined for cave bear clans battling each other; but it's not happening because Ubisoft wants to focus on a single-player experience.

PC Gamer picked up the news from Ubisoft community manager Jason Paradise, who took to the Steam forums to explain why the game will be a single-player only experience, writing...

This is actually one of the few times where I'm a little taken aback by the decision. Usually multiplayer is tacked onto games that don't necessarily need it, or there are games where they center a large portion of the progress around the online modes that are only really active and bustling for the first few months of the game's release before they fade out and die off altogether.

A game like Far Cry Primal seemed like it had been steadily building up to announcing some sort of multiplayer component. The thing is, the game has no guns, no modern vehicles, no modern gadgets, and weapons all focused on the stone age era of combat – so it's all things before the iron age, which means you're going to be greatly limited on your arsenal. No swords.

The other thing that seems to be a little baffling with Far Cry Primal is that the game is just a month out from release and I have no idea what you're really doing in the game. There is no main bad guy that they've advertised and they don't seem to have any kind of direction for the game other than taming animals and growing a clan. The motivation of the game is kind of lacking, the impetus to do things is lacking and now we find out that there will be no co-op... what?

Maybe there's some other aspect to the game that they haven't showcased yet, but it's starting to become a bit worrying that they want to charge $60 for what's essentially a really, really stripped down version of Far Cry 4. Fewer weapons, fewer modes, fewer features, and no real direction for the story has me wondering what the appeal is exactly of this particular Far Cry entry? I imagine some people might be pointing to the success of games like The Stomping Land (before it was pulled), or Primal Carnage and recent games like ARK: Survival Evolved as possible inspiration, but even in comparison to those games Far Cry Primal doesn't quite match up in its uniqueness or features.

Now this isn't to say that Far Cry Primal will be bad; it could end up being a very good game.

I think that the major thing that's throwing me for a loop is exactly what is going to compel gamers to lay down $60 for this game? For $35 gamers can tame more than a dozen different dinosaurs and use stone age, modern age, and futuristic weapons in ARK: Survival Evolved on the Xbox One or PC... and it has multiplayer.

We'll see what Ubisoft has up their sleeve to convince gamers why this latest Far Cry will be worth the financial plunge.

The upcoming first-person survival game from Ubisoft, Far Cry: Primal, has been turning heads for its stone age era weaponry and gameplay. Well, the savagery of that era appears to shine through nice and bright, as the game will receive the typical 'M' for Mature rating due to all the gore, mutilation and caveman sex. Yes, there's caveman sex.

PC Gamer did a write up on the newly rated title by the ESRB, which depicts all sorts of violence, gore, animal abuse and – according to various reports – Mesolithic nudity.

The actual ESRB page describes what sort of mature content is featured in Far Cry: Primal, and it includes torturing people by holding them over fires to burn off their face, tapping holes into their skulls while they're still alive, stabbing them, impaling them, cutting them and killing them in a number of other gruesome ways. The ESRB page also notes that you can see male genitalia from underneath the little loin cloths that the characters wear, along with female breasts since some of the tribes have topless women, and there is even some clothed caveman sex.

It's interesting because the ESRB's rating for the game is Mature but the Australian Classification for the title is only MA15+. The Australian board only noted that the themes and violence had a “strong impact” but the nudity and sex were of “moderate impact”.

The game's prime focus will be on animal taming. Imagine a game based on the low-budget classic The Beastmaster and that's very similar to what you get in Far Cry: Primal. The game will see players taming beasts and using them as companions to completely wreak havoc on enemy tribes. This includes riding on Wooly Mammoths or sending Sabre-tooth Tigers into combat to rip enemies to shreds.

One of the more interesting mechanics is that players will be able to send in owls with bombs to disrupt enemy forces. And since this is in the stone age, there are no traditional grenades or guns, so players will have to make do with bee bombs and traps.

The lack of traditional weaponry hasn't really gone over too well with some gamers who miss their M16s and AK-47s from previous Far Cry titles. It's a hard sell, for sure, from Ubisoft's end, because stone age weapons aren't all that cool. Yes there are bows, spears and bone axes, but a large part of the appeal for most games is in their unique weapon cache, and so far most of the weapons depicted in Far Cry: Primal are the sort of thing you would make as a kid in your backyard with some rocks, sticks and mud.

However, Ubisoft is banking on the game's survival elements and animal taming being a large draw for the title. Incorporating other rival tribes as players attempt to survive in the harsh outdoors gives the game some measure of tension, but Ubisoft will have their work cut out for them to pull six to eight hours of gameplay out of this title, or at least make it highly replayable.

Far Cry: Primal in all its gory, caveman glory is due for release on February 23rd, 2016 for the Xbox One and PS4, and in March for PC.

Ubisoft finally released some new footage of the upcoming Far Cry Primal, which is due for release on February 23rd, 2016 in North America and Europe for the Xbox One, PS4 and PC. The game had a world premiere gameplay trailer unveiled at this year's Game Awards show.

You can check out the two minute trailer that was posted up on Ubisoft's channel, below.

The trailer reveals quite a bit, as players will take on the role of Takkar during the stone age period of 10,000 B.C.

In a slightly extended video we learn more about the Beastmaster abilities, almost identical to the movie from 1982. The player is capable of taming and controlling a variety of animals in order to defeat rival tribes and also venture and explore the land.

Players will need to acquire bait and then throw it down to lure in an animal. After it eats the bait players will then need to go up to the animal and press and hold the tame button. For those of you who have played ARK: Survival Evolved or The Stomping Land or other survival games where you can hunt and tame animals, the process is a stripped down version of what's featured in most other PC simulators. You just throw down the bait, wait for the predator to eat the bait, and then slowly walk over and tame them. It's not as complex or as layered as the aforementioned titles, but it's a step up from the previous Far Cry games that simply had animals there as background fodder for the most part.

Players will be able to command a wide variety of different beasts of the wild, including but not limited to leopards, saber-tooth tigers, dire wolves, and small mammoths. Some of the animals can be tamed to be ridden as well, working as transportation across the larger open play-scape. For those of you who hate spending a lot of time running around in giant open worlds with little to do, they do have fast travel available. Players can light a cord of wood on fire to work as a checkpoint to open up the map further and fast travel to those points. It's a replacement for the radio towers from Far Cry 4.

It's also possible to use owls to scout areas and even use them to do bombing runs on enemies. Speaking of enemies... it's still possible to utilize a lot of stealth during gameplay, even when controlling animals that have been tamed. Players can direct the animals under their control to attack and kill enemy NPCs while also concurrently taking down foes with either a spear, a knife or a bow and arrow.

Given the limited range of weapons available during the Stone Age, Ubisoft got creative with things like poisonous spear-tips, and bee bombs. Players can unlock new weapons and traps in Far Cry Primal using a crafting mechanic.

The game is scheduled for release this upcoming February for the Xbox One, PC and PS4. It's a little hard to tell if there will be more to the game or if it's going to just revolve around taming and taking out rival tribes, but that appears to be the gist of this latest Far Cry game.

While most first-person shooters are pushing further and further into the future, the Far Cry series will soon be revisiting the past. And when we say “the past,” we mean “the super-duper distant past.” Get ready to fight some mammoths in Far Cry Primal.

Rumors started circulating earlier this week that Ubisoft was gearing up to announce a new Far Cry game. Based on the teaser image (a cave drawing of a hunter) rumors quickly settled in on a trip back to the days when mankind was just starting to move up the food chain. This was actually something hinted at earlier this year, with speculation circulating that the next game in the series would feature vampires or dinosaurs.

Now, thanks to a full announcement on the Ubiblog and a reveal trailer, we know that those hunches were 100 percent correct.

This is a huge departure from the norm not just for the Far Cry series, but for video games in general. This is likely due to the fact that setting a game in this era offers some tricky obstacles to overcome for a first-person action game, namely the lack of stuff like cities, guns and traditional interactions with NPCs. I think it’s cool that the team decided to challenge itself with telling a story during this period in history, so fingers crossed that it turns out well.

According to Content Communications Manager Giancarlo Varanini, Far Cry Primal’s goal is to drop the player into a world where danger truly lurks around every corner. As Takkar, you are the sole survivor of a hunting party and stranded far away from your tribe. You’ll battle all sorts of killer critters in the stone age, as well as members of rival tribes.

As Varanini explains, fire will be just as important as the tools and weapons you’ll craft, as it can be used to guide your way or misdirect enemies and animals you are hunting.

If the team can turn all of that into a lasting, entertaining adventure, gamers could be in for a real breath of fresh air when Far Cry Primal launches on Feb. 23 for Xbox One and PlayStation 4. The PC release is set for March. The trailer makes the game look like a full launch, so expect something closer to Far Cry 4 than the smaller, yet equally radical, downloadable Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon.