When Far Cry Primal was being teased, but had not been announced officially, I became stupidly excited, because I thought ‘prehistoric Far Cry‘ meant a game where I’d get to ride dinosaurs, and engage in dinosaur combat. Far Cry Primal, when announced, wasn’t what I wanted. It still looks awesome, of course- but I really wanted dinosaurs.
Speaking to IGN, Ubisoft’s Kevin Shortt, who is also lead writer for Far Cry Primal, discussed why the game does not have dinosaurs- even though they would have made for such a cool game!
“There are no dinosaurs in Primal,” said Shortt. “Because we chose a period. Yes it’s prehistoric but it’s a period in the stone age we wanted to represent. And dinos, historically, are millions of years in the past, and humans and dinos never were together, so we just decided to be true to that. Would it be fun? Sure. But for us, no. We wanted to represent the stone age – we want to be as true to that period as we can while giving our colorful flair.
“I just really like how we approached the narrative, this time around. It’s really giving players the opp to go at it as they want. There’s no right path. All players will have a different experience. They’re going to go to this specialist, and find this wenja character, and bring them to the village. They do that their own way. I’m really excited to hear the difference in stories. That’s what’s great about Far Cry. So many players have unique stories – and now that the narrative is quite fluid in the way that players approach it, I’m really excited to hear those stories.”
That is as good a reason as any, of course, and I respect them for their artistic vision- but still, guys. Dinosaurs.