Set in the jungles of prehistoric Africa around ten million years ago, the game places the player in control of a clan of hominins, early members of the evolutionary line leading to modern humans. The world is an open, dangerous wilderness filled with predators and natural hazards, where every foraging trip, climb, and encounter carries risk. The player's goal is to keep the clan alive and guide it as it slowly grows, learns, and evolves. By exploring, making discoveries, developing new skills, and raising new generations, the clan gradually advances across a vast span of time toward becoming something new.