20th Century Fox’s Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is another amazing entry in the brilliant sci-fi series. Taking place 300 years after the death of Caesar, the new movie is an excellent follow-up to Matt Reeves’ incredible films, but most fans of the movies have yet to experience an extremely underrated canon entry in the story, a tale only told through a video game.
Released in 2017 as a tie-in to War for the Planet of the Apes, Planet of the Apes: Last Frontier is a full cinematic adventure set between that film and its 2014 predecessor. Focusing on a splinter group that followed Koba during the events of Dawn, this Telltale-like adventure game is a full Apes film in video game form. It’s not as memorable as Telltale’s landmark The Walking Dead, but it’s a severely underrated narrative adventure.
Developed by Imaginati Studios, Planet of the Apes: Last Frontier certainly looks the part. While it’s not as mind-blowingly realistic as the stunning CGI of the movie trilogy, it’s a gorgeous game with motion capture and creative input from the films’ iconic Andy Serkis. Unfortunately, human character models look a lot rougher than the game’s titular Apes, but that’s to be expected.
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+ 2Set in the American Rockies, Last Frontier offers a unique locale not seen in the modern movies. It follows more of a Western aesthetic, sometimes coming close to Red Dead Redemption 2’s dusty towns and sparse woods, albeit with assault rifles and talking monkeys.
Playing as Byrn, the son of Elder Chimp Khan, you and your friends are tasked with saving your clan from a drastic food shortage. However, a defensive group of human survivors, also suffering from a similar shortage of resources, has the potential to cause harm to your tribe.
As with most Telltale-like games, the story is split with multiple branching choices, and it’s up to you to choose what you think is the right course of action. There’s not much gameplay here, even compared to basic Telltale games, but the narrative itself and the performances of its cast are strong enough to keep Apes fans engaged.
Unfortunately, Planet of the Apes: Last Frontier is more or less a tech demo, and its developers were vocal about that during its release. Using the same technology as the movies, this game is more of an experiment to see if that level of motion capture can work for video games - and it can - but the game itself does leave a lot to be desired.
click to enlarge + 2However, for those who are craving more monkey movie madness after watching Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, Last Frontier is an awesome entry that very few fans have actually played. It’s essentially a movie with choices, and while it’s not as good of a movie as the impeccable Dawn and War entries, you should definitely give it a shot.
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