A follow-up to Primal Carnage: Extinction, Primal Carnage: Evolution is currently available to wishlist on the PlayStation Store. Among other features, the game supports multiplayer for up to 16 players and features new dinosaurs, abilities, and weapons per the official website. It also offers a higher resolution and frame rate on PS4 Pro and PS5.

Offering a contrast to Extinction, Primal Carnage: Evolution also doesn’t seem to have a PC release planned, with the trailer mentioning only PlayStation platforms.

Much like its predecessor, Primal Carnage: Evolution will feature multiplayer action where one team of players take on the role of dinosaurs while other players are hunters, armed to the teeth to take on the dinosaurs. Evolution will feature an expanded roster of dinosaurs to play with over Extinction, as well as plenty of customization options.

The original game in the series was developed by Pub Games but the primary development of Primal Carnage: Extinction is under Circle 5 Studios, a new indie team. Circle 5 Studios now own the rights to the Primal Carnage brand and have taken over the work of Lukewarm Media. Pub Games involvement in the game’s development, though still existing, is in an unknown capacity.

At this time, the game is currently available on Steam Early Access where it launched on December 3rd 2014. It was also slated to be released in Q1 2015 on the PlayStation 4.

• 1. Development
• 2. Story
• 3. Gameplay
• 4. Characters

Development

The development of Primal Carnage: Extinction is strange in the sense that it has seen developers come and go as well as having the rights to the game exchange hands. When Primal Carnage first launched on Steam, it was largely received with a distinct lack of interest and a wave of complaints from gamers. The game was originally said to have been riddled with bugs that were eventually, for the most part, fixed with patches.

With that in mind, it was decided that the game should receive a massive recode, reworking the game from the ground up and effectively rebuilding the very core of its gameplay systems. Pub Games came in to work on this rebuild, but not too long after a number of the previous developers abandoned the project, including Lukewarm Media’s co-founder Ashton Anderson.

Version 2.0 of the game was eventually scrapped entirely and instead replaced with a new build that would serve as a sequel to Primal Carnage. This was revealed on October 27th 2014 as Primal Carnage: Extinction. Understandably, the news was met with some confusion from gamers who were simply expecting a large patch or update. Instead, the Extinction game was released a mere two months later on December 3rd 2014.

A common complaint is that the current build of extinction is still buggy. One reviewer has written, “What started out as a recode to fix the increasing issues of the original PC became a whole new game all together that changed eveything about it. What was once a well balanced and competitive game that I spent over a 1000 hours playing turned into a buggy mess and now in the latest incarnation has completely wiped out the balance and competitiveness of the game and turned it into a loot generator.”

Speaking about the game’s appearance on the PS4 at 1080p at 60fps, Aaron Pollack from Circle5 Studios has told GamingBolt, “Well, UE3 doesn’t officially support PS4 so we’ve been working this build off of some of the work by the now defunct Zombie studios who have done a stellar job of getting PS4 support into the engine. To get this playing well we’ve also made a lot of optimisations under the hood and we’ve allowed the PS4 to push our game to the highest quality textures, shader quality and post processing.

“We’re running at 1080p and are aiming for a solid 60fps frame rate. The biggest challenges so far have been that Unreal 3 wasn’t made for PS4 so there’s been a lot going on engine-wise to get things running so that we can support PC players and PS4 players with the same level of quality. It’s important that games have a stable, high frame rate so that gameplay appears smooth. Achieving a high framerate is really important to create a great user experience, and developers have to make trade-offs to achieve good looking games…”

Story

Primal Carnage: Extinction features a series of multiplayer-driven events such as objective based missions rather than a typical narrative-based campaign.

Gameplay

Primal Carnage: Extinction is first person multiplayer shooter that is made different and interesting by the inclusion of player controlled Dinosaurs.

The player classes are what lend the game a sense of depth. It is how they are different from each other and how they function that makes them the core of the gameplay.

The game currently supports two gameplay modes. One of these modes is a typical team death match styled mode where players divide into teams and duke it out until the match ends. The team with the highest overall score is declared the victor. The second game mode is Get to the Chopper that is an objective based gameplay mode.

Characters

Primal Carnage: Extinction sports a variety of gameplay classes that enable the player to counter the natural talents and strengths of the dinosaur opponents. These classes are:

The Scientist (Sniper) – The Scientist fulfills the role of the game’s dedicated ranger soldier unit. The character description reads “An expert marksman, Moria prefers to approach problems from a distance”. The advantages of the sniper is that your rifle deals a tremendous amount of damage, but packs low amounts of ammo and suffers long reload times.

Despite being a ranged specialist, the sniper can be useful up close with the tranquilizer gun. Using it tactfully can slow down even the largest opponent and strip their stamina away. The scientist can also deploy health kits.

The Commando (Assault) – The Commando is the dedicated assault trooper. The character description reads “A military veteran, Marcus is adept at unleashing a hailstorm of lead upon his foes”. The Commando comes armed with an assault rifle that can deal decent amounts of damage and has a moderately high rate of fire. The weapon comes with a grenade launcher that can be used to deal high damage to a single target or to damage groups of foes. The Commando also packs a pistol as a secondary firearm. He can also deploy ammunition boxes to supply team members with restocks.

The Trapper (Hunter) – The Trapper, as the name would imply, uses his secondary weapon to trap dinosaurs, making them easy pickings for the rest of the team. The character description reads “Jackson, a big game hunter, is here to claim the ultimate trophy with traps and dual pistols”.

His primary weapon is actually a set of two heavy hitting revolver pistols that are accurate out to a medium range and can deal an impressive amount of damage if used properly by balancing controlled shots with measured accuracy. The Trapper’s piece of equipment comes in the form of an IFF land mine. This will not detonate if you or a team-mates step on it – rather it will only go off if a dinosaur steps on it. If you’re in the radius of the blast, you and team-mates can be injured.

The Pathfinder (Scout) – The Pathfinder, like the Trapper has an implied name: he forges forward and finds the path for the rest of the team. Armed with a shotgun, he can most often fend off the faster and weaker dinosaurs single-handedly. The character description reads “A survival expert, Joseph specializes in close-range combat”. Naturally, at a range the shotgun doesn’t deal damage but it does sport an impressive reload speed.

This allows the Pathfinder to put damage down whilst staying prepared. The secondary weapon, a pistol, can be used to deal damage out to a medium range as long as the player maintains accurate control of the weapon. The Pathfinder can also deploy a flare that can blind opponents but light up areas for team mates. The flare can be used passively as a tool or tactically as a means of advance and retreat.

The Pyro (Support)– The Pyro trooper, is the game’s support and control class. Using a flamethrower to lock down areas with gouts of fire, or to deal damage fast in close quarters, the Pyro is an essential part of any team. The flamethrower can be used to intimidate enemies as well if used properly. The Pyro operates in a close proximity to the targets and uses a chainsaw for defense up close, which can deal heavy damage.

Note: This wiki will be updated once we have more information about the game.

GamingBolt had a chance to speak to Aaron Pollack of Circle 5 Studios on Primal Carnage: Extinction and its Early Access state, the fate of Genesis and its eventual PS4 version. Curious about the changes that have evolved Extinction to its current state? Read on to find out more.

"We think fans will be pretty excited when we launch. We’ve also added greater cosmetic options that allow players to further customize all their humans and dinosaur characters."

Rashid K. Sayed: Primal Carnage: Genesis looked extremely promising when it was announced back in 2013. We are already aware about why the game is on an indefinite hold but do you think it can come back should you receive funding from a third party publisher?

Aaron Pollack: We’re still hearing from fans and outside companies interested in Genesis.  Though we had to put the project on hold we’re still having conversations with different parties, including other publishers, about how we might be able to re-approach the project with outside funding and development support.

Rashid K. Sayed: Furthermore, are you still actively looking to bring back Genesis? Or is your focus 100% only on Primal Carnage: Extinction?

Aaron Pollack: I’m actively engaged in a number of conversations about the brand as a whole.  But as far as the development focus of the team, that’s all on Extinction at the moment.  We want to get the game out of Early Access next month with all the critical issues address and as much polish as we can get in in the next month or so.

Rashid K. Sayed: Will the game run at native 1080p and locked 60 frames per second on the PS4? Furthermore, what is your biggest challenge in making this happen?

Aaron Pollack: We’re running at 1080p and are aiming for a solid 60fps frame rate. The biggest challenges so far have been that Unreal 3 wasn’t made for Orbis so there’s been a lot going on engine-wise to get things running so that we can support PC players and PS4 players with the same level of quality

Rashid K. Sayed: What kind of updates have you done to the Mercenaries and Dinosaurs classes?

Aaron Pollack: Many.  We’ve added support for quite a bit of customization, both to gameplay and appearance. The human have a 3-Slot Swappable Weapon System similar to that seen in other FPS games that offers choice of a primary weapon, secondary weapon, and a third slot for miscellaneous items such as traps, explosives, and droppable pick-ups (ammo, health, etc.).  The dinosaur team on the other hand uses a 5 class system (Tyrant, Predator, Bruiser, Flier, Spitter), that offers a choice of dino-subclasses that differ in smaller ways with respect to stats or special abilities.  Going this route with the dinosaurs allows us to introduce new dino-mechanics the way our players want to see it most, with new playable dinosaurs.

We launched in Early Access with 4 new playable subclasses that utilized the premium skin models from the first game. But we have a collection of new dinosaurs that have not yet been seen in-game that we’re rapidly animating and building mechanics for. We think fans will be pretty excited when we launch. We’ve also added greater cosmetic options that allow players to further customize all their humans and dinosaur characters.

"DirectX is always improving and it's exciting to see how far it's come. The biggest catch with it right now is the support fragmentation with PS4."

Rashid K. Sayed: How different is Primal Carnage going to play compared to the original?

Aaron Pollack: Primal Carnage’s solid dinosaur movement and mechanics is probably what people liked most about the first game and though we’ve built the game up from the ground up we’ve made sure to keep the defining elements of the brand.  But the original game had a much smaller scope compared to Primal Carnage: Extinction.  There were a lot of ideas for content (more dinosaurs, fresh game modes, mechanic variation) that were envisioned for the last game but which the foundation of code and art simply didn’t support, which is why development ultimately ceased on the first game and how Extinction originally came about.  Circle 5 Studios and Pub Games have effectively built a sandbox dinosaur game where all of these ideas and more are possible.

One major new feature that opens up a variety of new gameplay doors in AI support. This system is well underway and will allow us to design co-op and single-player modes, bot support, all of which make the game more accessible to players who may not be as keen to jump into the chaotic multiplayer-only matches. Along with the new hint system we’ve put into the game, these AI modes also offers less experienced gamers ways to learn the mechanics and practice their strategy.

Some of the more notable distinction are massive quality and performance improvements to the game; Extinction looks better and runs better

Rashid K. Sayed: As someone who has an extensive career in PC games development, what are your thoughts on the upcoming iteration of DirectX i.e. DirectX 12? Some developers claim that it will bring in CG like visuals on Xbox One and PC. What is your take on this?

Aaron Pollack: DirectX is always improving and it’s exciting to see how far it’s come. The biggest catch with it right now is the support fragmentation with PS4. There are around 14 million PS4s on the market right now and if a developer pursues DX they’re making a calculated decision to not release to that userbase. Sure, there’s a lot of cross over in the userbase but it’s still a pretty big risk for a large scale production.

I think the new versions will bring a pretty good benefit provided that the companies like Epic and Unity take advantage of them and developers are willing to either split their visual pipelines or develop with exclusivity in mind. Of course, this issue isn’t just tied to Direct X. This is an issue for developing for a specific set piece of hardware too. If you look at the Uncharted series in the previous generation you can see just how much developers were able to squeeze out of the hardware.

"It's important that games have a stable, high framerate so that gameplay appears smooth. Achieving a high framerate is really important to create a great user experience, and developers have to make trade-offs to achieve good looking games that are still performant."

Rashid K. Sayed: I know that you guys are using UE3, but what kind of modifications have implemented in the engine to support Extinction? [in terms of lighting, textures, etc]

Aaron Pollack: Well UE3 doesn’t officially support PS4 so we’ve been working this build off of some of the work by the now defunct Zombie studios who have done a stellar job of getting PS4 support into the engine. To get this playing well we’ve also made a lot of optimisations under the hood and we’ve allowed the PS4 to push our game to the highest quality textures, shader quality and post processing.

Rashid K. Sayed: From a developer perspective, how important is to have 60 frames per second in games?

Aaron Pollack: It’s important that games have a stable, high framerate so that gameplay appears smooth. Achieving a high framerate is really important to create a great user experience, and developers have to make trade-offs to achieve good looking games that are still performant.

Rashid K. Sayed: Do you have a concrete release date on when the game will be out?

Aaron Pollack: The end of the month is the current target and we’re well on track from a development perspective.  We’ve basically hit most of our release candidate feature goals and it’s now a matter of deciding whether some new stretch goals will be ready by launch or released shortly thereafter.

Rashid K. Sayed: Is there anything else you want to tell us before we let you go?

Aaron Pollack: We’ve been working hard to build a foundation for Primal Carnage: Extinction that allows us to grow our compie-sized indie brand into some more T-rex sized (I know that’s not how evolution works but it’s the metaphor we’re going with).  We want to thank fans of the brand out there for sharing this journey with us.  We’re planning a variety of contests and promotions for the weeks and months ahead so be sure to watch our social media channels!

Circle5 Studios are currently hard at work on PS4 console exclusive, Primal Carnage: Extinction. GamingBolt recently got the chance to interview Aaron Pollack from Circle5 Studios to know more about the game. The game is currently running on Unreal Engine 3, a engine that has no native support for the PS4, so what kind of modifications did the development team implemented in the engine to support Extinction.

“Well, UE3 doesn’t officially support PS4 so we’ve been working this build off of some of the work by the now defunct Zombie studios who have done a stellar job of getting PS4 support into the engine. To get this playing well we’ve also made a lot of optimisations under the hood and we’ve allowed the PS4 to push our game to the highest quality textures, shader quality and post processing,” Aaron stated.

So will the game run at 1080p and 60 frames per second? “We’re running at 1080p and are aiming for a solid 60fps frame rate. The biggest challenges so far have been that Unreal 3 wasn’t made for PS4 so there’s been a lot going on engine-wise to get things running so that we can support PC players and PS4 players with the same level of quality.”

“It’s important that games have a stable, high frame rate so that gameplay appears smooth. Achieving a high framerate is really important to create a great user experience, and developers have to make trade-offs to achieve good looking games that are still performant.”

Primal Carnage: Extinction currently does not have any release date but is expected to arrive sometime later this year.

Microsoft’s next iteration of its proprietary graphics API, DirectX 12 has been vastly praised for the improvements it will bring to PC and possibly Xbox One games development. But there is some uncertainty whether developers will adopt it for mass scale production for Xbox One games.

Aaron Pollack from Circle 5 Studios, who is currently working on Primal Carnage: Extinction has shared his thoughts on the potential of DirectX 12 with GamingBolt. He believes that the new iteration is exciting but the big question is whether developers will develop games using it, and while doing so will it mean that they need to take a calculated risk of not launching their game on the PS4, a console that has already sold over 20 million units?

“DirectX is always improving and it’s exciting to see how far it’s come. The biggest catch with it right now is the support fragmentation with PS4. There are around 20 million PS4s on the market right now and if a developer pursues DX they’re making a calculated decision to not release to that user base. Sure, there’s a lot of crossover in the userbase but it’s still a pretty big risk for a large scale production,” he said to GamingBolt.

He then goes to explain the benefits of the new API. “I think the new versions will bring a pretty good benefit provided that the companies like Epic and Unity take advantage of them and developers are willing to either split their visual pipelines or develop with exclusivity in mind. Of course, this issue isn’t just tied to Direct X. This is an issue for developing for a specific set piece of hardware too. If you look at the Uncharted series in the previous generation you can see just how much developers were able to squeeze out of the hardware.”

Pollack’s statements makes a lot of sense. Games development isn’t exactly cheaper and for a multiplatform game, it would require more work to support DX12 for the Xbox One version as well a different code structure for the PS4 version. This may give rise to cross platform code compatibility issues and other nuisances that come along with multiplatform games development. Whether it’s worth is something we cannot comment at the moment since Microsoft hasn’t revealed any Xbox One/DX12 benchmarks yet.

But we will know soon enough as DX12 is scheduled for a launch later this year.