Gameplay Hints

Discover essential gameplay hints for Far Cry Primal. Learn survival tactics, combat strategies, resource management, and how to best utilize your owl and tamed beasts.

Since you start the game with low health and low-end weaponry, survive your early travels in Oros by accessing dangerous situations and avoiding fights you can't easily win. Use Hunter's Vision to scan the terrain and hide in the foliage and use trees and boulders to mask your position to avoid trouble or to plan an ambush. Avoid early encounters with high-level predators like bears or bands of the enemy by hiding, skirting around them, letting them move off or by running away. Most predators are very active at night, so travelling during daytime can minimize contacts. Seeking shelter from predators, wholly rhinos and mammoths by getting onto boulders, steep grades, by sliding down slopes or by swimming in deep water can be advantageous. Using Hunter's Vision to scan watercourses before entering can avoid contact with crocodiles and bitefish.

Be aware that headshots are lethal or very damaging on most regular human enemies, and inflict the highest damage on wildlife. Whenever possible, go for a headshot.

After completing Attack of the Udam, side missions will become available in revealed territory. Completing missions, like Escort and Save Captive, will yield both a skill point and will add to the village's population. A village population of 40 is an initial goal since that is required to upgrade huts as well as increasing the items sent to the stash to twice a day. Completing Beast Kill missions yields both XP and skins for crafting. Securing the owl and a beast will make completion of these missions easier.

Resource stashes are found at outposts, bonfires, campfires and in Takkar's Cave. Random resources will be sent to the stashes when the village achieves 20 residents, adding to the items Sayla adds after you build her hut. This bounty will increase to twice a day at a village population of 40 and three times a day at 60. Upgrading Sayla's hut will result in the possibility of "rare" items being added. Stashes will provide a significant portion of the resources needed during the campaign.

Take bonfires and outposts to provide fast travel stations, rest stations, for XP, for population and for the stash for resupply. Sites closest to the village are less challenging that those farther afield and make good staging points to shorten the route to more remote areas. Systematically taking bonfires, outposts and acquiring campfires as territory is revealed will greatly facilitate travel and allow you to rest and resupply.

During the opening phase of the game, prioritize bringing the Wenja specialists-Tensay, Wogan, Jayma and Karoosh-to the village. Doing so will enable their skill trees, will provide their series of missions, will yield XP and will provide gear and weapons like the grappling hook, winter clothing, the long bow and the pack and belts. Upgrading their huts will require a village population of 40 but upgrading will provide 3, 000 XP as well as gear like the double bow, the bomb belt and Sayla's upgrade will add random "rare" items to stashes.

Don't underestimate the utility of the owl. You will acquire it early in the game and it isn't simply an eye in the sky. It can be upgraded very early in the game to kill regular and then many Elite enemies. Using the owl to scout for the horn-blowing Elite Slingers and then having the owl take them out is an enormous benefit. This will prevent them from calling reinforcements. Many missions can be made much easier by exercising patience and letting the owl team with a beast to soften-up or eliminate the hostiles at a site. The owl can also be used for hunting. It can take many lower level or skittish species like deer, goats, boars, dholes and badgers and their rare variations. Rare White Deer are skittish, but can easily be taken with the owl. The owl can even be use to deliver Stone Age bombs.

Make it a priority to acquire Tame Wildcats and Tame Apex Predators as early in the game as possible. You'll need to tame 5 beasts, which includes the owl, to get Tame Apex Predators. This skill will allow you to tame a brown bear and a sabretooth. A brown near, for example, can easily be tamed during On the Hunt, even before during a random encounter. Both of these beasts are a game-changing asset. Not only are they fierce but you can climb aboard them after acquiring Beast Rider, making travelling through Oros much faster and much safer. You can use Hunter's Vision and your weapons while riding and the beast can still be directed to attack. Other beasts will shy away from a sabretooth and it and the bear can be used for hunting. Both make missions like Brother In Need and The Bone Caves much easier. Taming a beast, even a fierce sabretooth, is best done after dismissing your active beast so it doesn't engage. Just toss a bait, approach the beast and interact. You can whistle to recall a beast, keeping it alongside. Be aware that beasts can't always follow, but will follow terrain to return to you. A sabretooth won't enter deep water and may need to be dismissed and recalled or it may stay at the water's edge, hesitant to cross to rejoin you.

Actively upgrade your weapons and gear before diving deep into the campaign. This will require both the harvesting of items like wood, stone, bone and hide as well as harvesting animal skins and feathers. Early missions like, On The Hunt and Brother In Need will take you into Southern and Northern Oros where the resources required to upgrade the spear, the club, gear and to build the long bow can be acquired. Take the time to identify what resources are needed and explore as needed to acquire them. Upgrading the Pack, Spear Belt and the Quiver and weapons like the spear as early as possible is highly recommended. A fully upgraded thrown spear is a formidable weapon. The acquisition of winter clothing requires 4 wolf skins for the first upgrade and 2 Rare White Wolf and 2 Rare White Yaks skins for the second upgr