“Primal Carnage: Extinction is a class-based online multiplayer shooter unlike any other, featuring fast-paced combat, diverse environments, and over-the-top action. On a mysterious island overrun with prehistoric monsters, you can choose to fight as a variety of legendary dinosaurs or to join the human mercenary team armed with a unique, distinctive, and destructive arsenal aimed at making these bloodthirsty beasts extinct once and for all. Will you use a sniper rifle or flaming chainsaw to bring these hulking creatures to their knees? Will you swoop, stomp, or chew through the puny human intruders? The only real question is can you survive?”
The game and its characters have a retro 90s style reminiscent of action franchises like Jurassic Park and G.I. Joe. Though modeled realistically, and with keen attention to detail on the dinosaurs in particular, the characters and overall brand are slightly more colorful and playful with a wide array of in-game cosmetic assets for players to customize their characters.
The setting is a tropical island, where a company has secretly recreated dinosaurs through genetic engineering. When the power mysteriously fails, the dinosaurs are unleashed and overrun the facilities. A team of mercenaries has since been assembled from across the globe who, collectively, have the combined expertise to control the threat and reclaim the island.
System Requirements[]
- OS: Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8/8.1
- Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4 GHz or AMD Athlon X2 4800+
- Memory: 3 GB RAM
- Graphics: ATI 3850HD 512 MB or NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT 512MB
- DirectX: 9.0c
- Hard Drive: 5 GB HD space
- Other Requirements: Broadband Internet connection
Maps[]
Primal Carnage: Extinction will feature several tutorial maps designed to help new players to become familiar with the controls and abilities of each character with training exercise to perform against AI Enemies. All maps will have various naturalistic/jungle sound treatments.
Gameplay Mechanics[]
Dinosaur Gameplay[]
Dinosaurs have more health, move faster, and have attacks that generally deliver more damage but their attack style requires using speed, stealth, and distraction to be successful. Dinosaurs can regain health by either killing a human with direct damage from their bite attack, or eating from stationary Iguanodon carcasses scattered throughout maps. Each dinosaur character has a unique set of attacks including:
- Primary Melee Attack – biting and/or clawing dealing damage at close range
- Special attack – attack largely defining the character class, which sometimes drains stamina
- Roar ability that provides a buff to the character or to the entire dinosaur team, which has a cool down period.
Human Gameplay[]
The Human team's main advantage over the Dinosaur opposition is their firearms, which give them the ability to deal damage at range. Like dinosaurs, humans can refill on health and ammo and various crates spread across the map. Because of the disabling abilities which many of the Dinosaurs possess, the humans depend heavily on cooperation in order to survive (more so than the dinosaurs). A major change from the original game is that all humans now have a 3-slot weapon system (more consistent with the average multiplayer shooter game) that provides them with:
- Primary Weapon – weapon with a largest supply of ammo
- Secondary Weapon – weapons with more immediate kill or disabling potential but more limited ammo. A content patch is planned that would add melee weapons that would be also be selected for this slot.
- Miscellaneous Item - holds throwable/ droppable weapons or other items that can buff the player (health, ammo, improved attacks or defenses)
Camera Behavior[]
There are generally two types of cameras in the game, third person (dinosaurs) and first person (humans).
Human Camera Behaviors – The principal camera for humans is 1st person and as with most FPS games, the camera is connected to the Joystick 2 when using the gamepad. The camera has realistic movement behavior in relation to player actions (reloading a gun for instance) and in response to certain events in the game (such camera vibration when a T-rex approaches or if there is a nearby explosion). The player’s camera will shift to third person during some of the special human-dinosaur animations. Fully third person camera options for the human team are also being worked on. With this upcoming feature, players will be able to see and record themselves wearing their skins while on the human team, which in turn makes the customizable in-game items more valuable.
Dinosaur Camera Behavior - The third person camera is more independent and will allow the player to look around the character and to see more of the surrounding environment. For instance, by moving their dinosaur close to the wall and rotating the camera around it the player can see if a human is on the other side, which creates the sense that dinosaurs have the ability to better detect the enemy, perhaps “sniffing them out.” In this way, Primal Carnage takes asymmetric team-play to a new level by making the asymmetric camera modes and controls essential to gameplay. The varying sizes of the dinosaur classes provides a large variety of camera perspectives, which allows players to experience the world in very different ways. As the T-rex, players gets to run around as a giant, seeing the humans below like bugs to squish. The Pteranodon provides one of the most beautiful vantages, as the player gets to see the lush jungle landscape from above.
Gameplay customization[]
Gameplay customization is handled differently for each team. The human team has 5 characters whose weapons selection defines their class. There will be an increasing number of weapons that players can choose for the load-out of these characters. Dinosaurs, on the other hand, are grouped into 5 classes who subclasses of dinosaurs share similar gameplay. New dinosaur gameplay will be introduced with the addition of new dinosaurs, subclasses (often with a whole new model) with a similar but distinct set of abilities to the character class they belong to.
Classes[]
Humans[]
Dinosaurs[]
Game Modes[]
Team Death Match Swap (TDM) – the carnage in Primal Carnage. Dinosaurs vs. humans, kill as much as you can. Midway through the round the players switch sides, from human to dino or vice versa and the final score is made up from the total team kills for the round. TDM Swap is an ideal game mode for competitive play as it does not require “perfect balance” between the two teams (which is nearly impossible to ever achieve in any asymmetric class-based team game) because teams have the same chances of scoring kills by the end of the round. TDM is a game mode that will function on most maps.
- Server Option: Disable Swap- Server admins can disable the mid-game swap if they want to host a less competitive game. With this option the game would swap team at the end of the round
Get to the Chopper (GTTC) - in which humans must capture several points on a mostly linear path before signaling for rescue by helicopter. Each point is captured by holding it for a period of time (which varies depending upon the map and specific location. If human team is able to advance through all of the objectives by the end of the round they win and if they don’t the Dinosaur team wins. The Tyrant dinosaur class remains locked, for the dino team, until the humans complete the penultimate objective, making the completion of the final objective particularly epic. This game mode was the second game mode introduced to the original game and brought objective-driven gameplay to the brand, which makes it more appealing to those players turned off by the chaos of TDM.
Free Roam – essentially a sandbox mode, playable on any map that gives server admins to play with different options (such as whether or not players take damage); a primary difference of this mode is the absence of scoring mechanics. This mode caters to the role playing community that has shown sustained interest in the game, even during periods when the overall player-base has dipped. A few “odd” maps were specifically created for this mode (often by developers in their free time) that are free of the general level design heuristics in most of the maps that ensure balanced gameplay. Custom Free Rome maps can be very large and open-worldy, thematic, rich with easter eggs, or just plain goofy. Enough fans enjoy them
AI Game Mode – Supporting co-op and single player gameplay, this is a “horde” style mode where players are assaulted by waves of AI dinosaurs, with each wave more difficult than the last (increasing things like number of dinos, the AI-skill level, the proximity of spawn to players, etc.). This is the first AI-driven game mode and the foundation for building other AI game modes (which may be ready by PS4 release) and developing bot-support for all multiplayer game modes. We believe AI gameplay will add an enormous amount of value to the brand, especially in the console market, as it makes the game more appealing to players who would prefer to practice first playing with bots against AI enemies and more accessible to those who prefer playing offline and/or have limited internet access.
Capture the Egg (CTE) – The human team must collect dinosaur eggs that spawn around the map and safely bring them back to a safe-zone. This mode is similar to the “Capture the Flag” game mode seen in many multiplayer games but nuanced in that only one team has targets to capture. The development team has tested CTE with 2- 4 eggs in play that usually spawn a good distance from the safe-zone. Humans and dinosaurs alike can see the Egg icons and both sides are aware when making this a somewhat There are a variety of mechanic options under consideration for this mode and it would be very easy to create several game modes that each feel very distinct. Below are some of variables we will explore:
- Set # Eggs to Win- Humans must capture x number of eggs to win and if they don’t dinosaurs win. This is the simplest form of the game and how it was introduced into the first Primal Carnage. The win condition resembles that of GTTC , but a less linear, more back and forth, game flow.
- Team Swap, Most Eggs Wins – win condition and gameplay would resemble instead TDM Swap
- Egg Hunt- thus far the development team has tested CTE with 2- 4 eggs in play at any time and usually spawn a good distance from the safe-zone, gener. We have discussed the possibility of a variant mode where a much larger number of eggs are in play or a larger portion of the map. This would result in a less strategic, more chaotic, “Hungry Hungry Hippos” style of gameplay.
Upcoming modes[]
Dino v. Dino - We’ve built most of the core functional support for dino v. dino gameplay, though we need to further build out UI features and properly test this gameplay to ensure that it’s a viable addition to the game. Based on the number of requests that come and regular forum discussions we see about features like this, we believe that dino vs dino game modes could easily become more popular than the foundational human vs dinosaur gameplay.
Hunt - This is a game mode where a single semi-invisible (think Predator) supercharged dinosaur is pitted against a team of humans that it must kill before time runs out. We have all assets needed for this game-mode, though it will need code work and balance testing before it’s ready to be added to the game. This is a another game mode that should work on most maps, where TDM and CTE typically also work.
Party Game Modes - Small scope fun game modes like dino v dino soccer, Raptor speed runs, and Ptera flight courses. Perfect projects for creating a more fun LAN Party experience. We’ve consider designing one or more Primal Carnage “sports arenas” for these maps, with some of the features you see in EA games (sponsor banners or other humorous artwork surrounding the area in which the game is set.