Second Extinction (for PC)

Systemic Reaction’s Second Extinction lets you live out your dinosaur-hunting fantasies in a way not seen since the Nintendo 64's classic Turok games. Taking place in a future Earth overrun by mutant dinos, you and two allies team up to complete objectives while avoiding becoming a giant reptile’s lunch. This first-person shooter is all about fast-paced, co-op action that sees you mowing down dinosaur hordes. If you want to have a good time making dinosaurs extinct again, Second Extinction may be your game.

Dino Soldiers

Second Extinction has four selectable heroes that boast individual specializations. For the 30-minute hands-on demo we played, I chose the offensive-minded assault class. This character totes two primary weapons (in my case, an assault rifle and shotgun), and can request additional ammo from an orbiting drop ship. The PC game also has a support class that keeps your crew alive with healing items, and a tank class that uses a mini-gun to mow down snarling beasts.

Having a well-balanced team, along with proper coordination, is the key to survival. Dinosaurs swarm your group the instant you land on one of the giant maps, and flank you whenever possible. As such, you’ll need to create choke points. In one instance, my team hunkered down at the end of a bridge and let the dinosaurs come to us. Though you can play Second Extinction solo, it’s certainly better to have a full three-person squad.

You’ll find a large variety of dinosaur species. Raptors move quickly and overwhelm with great numbers. Spitters chuck debilitating poison. Hulking triceratopses trample anything and everything in their path. Focusing attacks on dinosaurs’ weak spots is crucial, especially when you have a beast aching to get you inside its belly. Triceratopses, for example, are covered in armor, so you must destroy their protective hides before you can attack the vulnerable flesh underneath. The dinosaur diversity keeps you on your toes, since you’ll constantly adjust your tactics to suit the situation.

A Sprawling World

Second Extinction isn’t an open-world game, but it features large, expansive maps. This gives you a large playground to explore, but won’t overwhelm you with its scope. There is no single way to reach an objective. You’ll hike cliffs, leap across chasms, or discover shortcuts through caves.

Conditions aren’t static. The weather and dinosaur types change each time you jump into the map. A light sprinkling of snow persisted throughout the entirety of my play through, but it could have turned into a full-on snowstorm at any second.

Though you’ll only play in three-player rounds, there is a massive global metagame called the War Effort. You’ll affect a map’s threat level by killing dinosaurs, finishing missions, and completing side quests. Your actions, and the actions of other online players, affect the local dinosaur population. Killing dinosaurs in a specified area and dwindling their numbers drives them to other areas. This could make life more difficult for players in said area of the map. What this amounts to is a truly dynamic experience that ensures you’ll never face the same conditions each play through.

Guns vs. Fangs

You select weapons and skills prior to the start of a mission. You upgrade weapons by using materials and tokens found and earned during missions. Weapons skills include extra damage, better handling, and increased clip size. Armor-piercing bullets destroy a dino’s protective shell, while other bullets slow fast-moving raptors. You’re not married to a specific skill-tree or load out. You’re free to swap skills and weapons between rounds. This helps you better prepare for challenges requiring specific guns and skills.

Explosions—either from frag grenades or from cluster bombs—are flashy, bombastic, and litter the land with dino-bits. Unfortunately, guns don't boom and burst in a satisfactory manner. The problem is that dinosaurs don’t react to being peppered with bullets. Unless you blow one to chunks, taking a dino down doesn’t fill you with the satisfaction it should.

Extinction Event

Though shooting and blowing up dinosaurs is good fun, we wonder how long Second Extinction can maintain its core gameplay loop before the action becomes stale. Then again, Left 4 Dead proved a title can go a long way by simply mixing up maps and enemies. That, in the end, could prevent Second Extinction from becoming a slog. And in all fairness, we don’t get many dinosaur-themed games, so Second Extinction has already carved out a place for itself in the crowded shooter pack.

Second Extinction debuts as a Steam Early Access in October. Expect an Xbox One and Xbox Series X release at a future date.

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