Systemic Reaction’s first person shooter Second Extinction has been in early access for a year and a half at this point, and having spent that time building up the game and adding new content, the developer is now ready to release the game in full. Ahead of Second Extinction’s full launch later this month for PC and Xbox consoles, here, we’re going to take a look at a few key things that you should know about the game.
PREMISE
Second Extinction has the sort of elevator pitch that instantly grabs your attention. It’s a first person shooter where your primary enemies are dinosaurs. And these aren’t ordinary dinos either. In Second Extinction, the world has been taken over by a mutated breed of dinosaurs that grants them terrifying size, mutations, and abilities, with only a few human survivors left, all of whom have banded together and retreated to a base in Earth’s orbit. What’s left of humanity is waging a war on the dinosaurs in order to take the planet back, with regular incursions send down to the planet to that end.
SOLO AND CO-OP
Second Extinction can be played solo, if you wish to do that, but it does, of course, also feature 3-player co-op, allowing you to take on dinosaur hordes with two other players. In fact, it’s very much been designed around that, with Systemic Reaction saying that the co-op is what the game is is built on first and foremost. If you decide to go in alone, you’ll be facing a much tougher challenge.
DINOSAURS
The dinosaurs are obviously the starts of the show in Second Extinction, and there’s a number of different kinds that you’ll be crossing paths with as you play the game, from raptors and t-rexes to different variations of types. Of course, given the fact that they’re all mutated, they will have unique abilities and attacks as well, including being able to generate electricity and spit acid. Dinosaurs in Second Extinction also work together, and can call for reinforcements.
CHARACTERS
Second Extinction has several playable characters that come with different classes, abilities, and weapons. For instance, there’s Sunetra, a field researcher who specializes in detecting enemies’ weaknesses and functions primarily as a support character. Jurgen is a long-range specialist armed with a sniper rifle, and even has an ability that grants him temporary invisibility. Rosy, meanwhile, is a tank with plenty of health and a minigun, and is perfect for people who like to brute force their way through challenging fights.
MORE CHARACTERS
Second Extinction has six playable characters, three of whom we’ve talked about. In the remaining group, Amir is a particularly useful one, not only because he has a grenade launcher, but also because his ability lets him sense surprise attacks from enemies. Ortega, meanwhile, is a Trooper class character, who is perfect for those who want to focus on dealing out steady damage and enjoy quick movement. Finally, there’s Jack, another Enforcer who can charge into enemies headfirst with deadly attacks and high damage resistance.
WEATHER AND TIME OF DAY
Dropping down into incursions to complete quests and dinosaurs while seeing progression for your character is the central loop in Second Extinction, but the game throws in other wrinkles to make things interesting in other ways. For instance, weather events such as snowstorms and sandstorms can make things trickier in the heat of combat, while certain missions also take place at night time, which has its own flavour.
THREAT LEVEL
Second Extinction’s metagame is all about the threat level. Systemic Reaction has built this as a live service experience that reacts to how the community is performing as a whole and sees changes from week-to-week. The more players successfully complete missions and objectives, the better the threat level will be. The threat level of an area, in turn, will determine how heavy its dinosaur population is. The four threat levels in the game are low, medium, high, and emergence.
1.0 CONTENT
As you’d expect, Second Extinction’s looming 1.0 launch is going to add a new chunk of content to the game to bulk up its offerings further. While we won’t know the specifics until the game has launched in full, as per the brief details provided by System Reaction, the game’s full launch will bring a revamped progression system, a couple of new dinosaur species (one of which is a flying creature), new mutations, improvements to the weapon upgrade system, being able to start new missions in the map without have to begin a new session, and the ability to free roam maps without having any missions activated. There’s also an enhanced user interface, improvements made to onboarding and the user experience, the ability to change loadouts by visiting bunkers, changes made to the War Effort metagame, an increase of the level cap to level 99, expanded difficulty options, additional customization options, a revised contract system, new cosmetic rewards, and more.
HORDE MODE
For those who’re in it for the pure thrill of shooting dinosaurs and don’t want to get distracted by missions or objectives, Second Extinction’s “Emergency Landing” mode is for you. It’s essentially a horde more where you find yourself on the planet equipped only with a pistol, and are tasked with taking on increasingly formidable waves of dinosaurs. The better you do, the more credits you earn, which in turn allows you to make purchases to help you progress further. It’s the horde mode formula we’re all very familiar with, except it also has mutant dinosaurs. There’s also a leaderboard to add a bit of a competitive edge to the proceedings.
CROSS-PLAY
Second Extinction’s multiplayer-centric nature means that it needs to have as little friction for its players as possible on that front. Thankfully, the game features support for cross-platform multiplayer, which means all players on Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, and PC (via Steam, the Epic Games Store, and the Microsoft Store) can play with each other. Second Extinction also comes with support for voice chat and matchmaking lobbies.
GAME PASS
Second Extinction is going to be available for purchase upon full launch for those who want to buy it, of course, but if you’re still on the fence about the game but want to give it a shot, there’s good news for you. The shooter has been available via Game Pass since it launched in early access last year, and when it launches in full on October 20, it will continue to be available to all subscribers of the service.
PC REQUIREMENTS
If you’re planning on playing Systemic Reaction’s co-op dino shooter on a PC, you’ll be glad to know that it’s not a terrible demanding game where system requirements are concerned. On minimum settings, you’ll need either an Intel Core i5-3570 or an AMD Ryzen 3 1300X, along with either an Nvidia GTX 780 (3 GB) or an AMD R9 280 (3 GB), along with 12 GB of RAM. Meanwhile, on recommended settings, you’ll need either an Intel Core i7-4770 or an AMD Ryzen 5 1600X, along with either an Nvidia GTX 1070 (8 GB) or an AMD Vega 56 (8 GB), and 16 GB of RAM. On either setting, you’ll need about 50 GB of free storage space.