Up to three players are dropping into a big map as class-based ‘heroes’ to help reclaim futureEarth by completing missions and shooting hordes of dinosaurs. It has weapon upgrades, persistent levelling to unlock new gear, and a “threat level” system that’ll change the dinosaur presence around the world each week as players complete or fail missions, so it should have some progression and variety. You can play on your tod but you won’t get AI teamies to fill the squad spaces where chums should be, which seems a shame. Second Extinction is available now on Steam Early Access for £19.49/€24.99/$24.99. The developers, Systemic Reaction say the price will go up when it launches full and finished, though they don’t yet know when that will be. They call this their “starting point” and say they want to initially focus on stability before getting into new content. Plans include a new hero, weapons, dinosaur mutations, game modes, events, and such, while also improving enemy AI and generally tweaking and improving things. Systemic have posted a long list of known issues so it’s not without technotrouble. Some players are reporting it crashes or won’t load, and the devs have advice for that too. And some folks with vast monitors are noting their preferred aspect ratios are not supported. From initial player reviews, mind, folks overall seem content running around with pals shooting dinosaurs. Which is all I’d ask of a game about shooting dinosaurs, really. Not a genre I have high expectations or demands for, beyond a bit of fun. I probably won’t buy so early in early access, but will keep an eye on it.
