Second Extinction: First Impressions

Only a week ago I wrote about the constant search for the perfect co-op game. While that search is never ending, I do believe that we’ve come one step closer. Second Extinction hit Game Pass on Wednesday, April 28th. The early access (Game Preview) title, on Xbox, pits up to three players against mutated dinosaurs in a post-apocalyptic action shooter. Imagine Turok and Deep Rock had a baby and you’re well on your way. 

Only a few days into release, my friends and I have only barely scratched the surface, but what lies beneath is promising. A brainchild of the Left 4 Dead school of thought, Second Extinction has a lot of the same feel. The gameplay loop is frantic and violent. Players have two options for approaching this world: You can drop into the map and explore it as an open world, or you can choose the story mode, which drops you into the same world but gives you a set of clear objectives with narrative dialogue. Given the early access nature of the game, I have been pleasantly surprised by the viability of both avenues. 

I dropped into the open world first, hoping to get a handle on the mechanics of the game. The tutorial is helpful, but you really need to dig into the wild to grok how all of the taught mechanics apply to the moment to moment world. Dropping from a dropship in an ODST reminiscent pod, you hurdle towards the hostile environment, taking in your immediate surroundings through a small viewport in the drop pod. On the ground I was instantly hit with a familiar feeling. I get this game. Eyeing the horizon it’s easy to pick up on multiple contextual clues. Radio towers loom in the distance, glowing patches of land patrolled by raptors indicate nests, an overturned truck with a large shipping container next to it implies gatherable supplies. Really, I’m terms of visual storytelling, Second Extinction nails the delivery. Very few objectives present themselves in mystifying ways. See that drone over there? Shoot it down and grab the hard drive to update your map. It all just makes sense.

What makes this easy to read open world infinitely better is the extremely solid gunplay. Running on the Avalanche Engine Apex, the engine used for games like Mad Max, Just Cause, and Rage 2, Second Extinction is slick as hell. Often when you embark on a journey into an early access title you temper your expectations when it comes to the overall feel. After all, games hone this aspect constantly. But, at the risk of sounding hyperbolic, this game far surpassed my expectations. Immediately clear is the graphical fidelity afforded by the Apex Engine. Alongside that though is extremely solid movement and traversal, satisfyingly crunchy gun sounds, and extremely juicy (surely that’s not the right word here) dinos to mow down. 

Jumping into the story with a couple friends, we quickly worked out our class based synergies, found our preferred weapons, and got to causing mayhem and bedlam. Tackling each of the objectives is fun and the variance of those objectives and the dinos that will seek to thwart you makes each task a random dice roll of chaos. Your time of day varies from mission to mission and, let me tell you, dropping in at night is an altogether different experience. The whole squad, peering out of their pod viewports, muttered obscenities as they saw the moon high in the sky. And while it is too early to tell if the dino population is affected by the time of day, I can certainly say finding the spawn burrows the raptors crawl out of, while fighting off dozens of the angry lizards, is noticeably more difficult when you can’t see more than thirty feet away. 

Outside of the gameplay is a series of systems that also lend additional depth. At level five you unlock the ability to accept contracts, encouraging you to hunt specific dinos or use specific weapons a specific way. The gun unlock trees, while at first a bit confusing, are deep and diverse. And as you level you gain alternative ordinance you can equip, swapping out grenade types or opting for an orbital strike over a supply or ammo drop. There are a lot of ways to tackle optimizing your loadout with your friends and that immediately feels really good. 

Of course the game isn’t perfect. Their are some wonky physics that sometimes send dino bits into the air with escape velocity when you blow them to pieces, sometimes whole groups of raptors will get stuck in a weird set off geometry, and occasionally it’s hard to track down exactly where tasks like the black box search are asking you to go. But exploding dinosaurs are kinda fun, chucking a grenade into a glitched little mob of raptors looks and feels great, and there is so much more to do around you, skipping a buggy objective is rarely a dissuading problem. The reality is, after fighting a horde of raptor variants and heavily armored Ankylosauruses, your adrenaline will be pumping, your operative will be covered in blood, and honestly, it feels fucking great. Just pray a Rex doesn’t show up and ruin your day.

This is just the start for Second Extinction too. Their roadmap over the next several months includes a new mutation type, a new primary weapon for the Enforcer class, a new operative class, Xbox Crossplay, a horde mode, a new secondary weapon, and seasonal contracts. Count me in. The feeling you get watching your exfiltration fly in overhead and drop its loading bay is so good I’m not sure I even needed more content. 

Keep an eye trained on this one folks, it's got a ton of potential!