A new update has just been released for
Primal Carnage: Extinction on Steam!
Featuring a whole new playable dinosaur class, this is one of our most ambitious releases yet...
[h2]
New Class:
PACHYCEPHALOSAURUS[/h2]
The "Pachy" is our third and final
Bruiser class now playable in-game!
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
This is the most advanced dinosaur that we've ever created, entailing a serious engineering effort. Our first
omnivore, it features multiple
brand new mechanics and some interesting new twists on old ones...
With DNA contaminated during the cloning process, this once peaceful plant eater is afflicted by a disease that causes a form of mania. They are irritable, angry and have a craving for flesh.
An armoured little ball of energy, Pachycephalosaurus is the most maneuverable of the three Bruisers, able to leap on buildings and execute quick turns. Its thick dome skull is a "super strong point" that is impervious to all but armour piercing weapons.
Pachycephalosaurus also has *two* secondary abilities...
[h3]
BRACING For Impact[/h3]
Bracing is a way for the Pachy to last longer in close quarters combat, allowing you to receive less damage. Hold alt fire (right mouse button) to hunker down and your whole body has an armour buff, lowering the amount of pain you feel. Doing this is strenuous for the Pachy, so drains your stamina.
The other secondary ability Pachy has is enabled by roaring...
[h3]
MANUAL Charge[/h3]
The key difference compared to Carno and Cerato is that you have
manual control of your charge as Pachycephalosaurus. Just running into enemies won't really deal any damage, you need to
roar first to enter
ADRENALINE RUSH. 
Adrenaline Rush mode makes the creature hyper energetic,
increasing agility. This lets it attack faster, jump higher, and most importantly-
unlocks your charge.
After roaring, hold alt fire (right mouse button) to launch into a charge directly ahead. It takes half a second to build up speed, then any human in your way will receive serious impact damage.
Be warned though - it is difficult to turn while charging. To get around that, you need to slide...
[h3]
SLIDE ABILITY[/h3]
Sliding is a special movement ability you have as Pachy. It lets you perform quick turns, redirect a charge without needing to slow down, and can even deal damage to enemies!
Simply
crouch while running to do a slide. Your speed and turning rate will be momentarily boosted and any humans in your path will receive impact damage + knockback.
[h3]
Food ability: GRAZING[/h3]
In addition to eating from corpses and getting health from killing humans like other dinosaurs, the Pachycephalosaurus can also restore itself by eating greenery.
If you are standing on grass and low on health, you can begin munching on the ground by holding the use key. Grazing like this is slower than filling up at a corpse, and the higher your health the less useful it will be, but this ability can give you a top-up when you need it most.
[h2]
Finally Unleashed! [/h2]
After countless challenging hours of development, we're super excited to finally have this class playable for everyone! Hopefully once you've had a chance to zoom around as it, you'll agree with us when we say that Pachy makes a mighty fine new addition to our dinosaur roster.
We can't wait to see how it affects the overall feel of the game, it's been pretty intense during testing!
However, a new dinosaur is not all we have for you today...
[h2]
Class Select and Customization Rework[/h2]
It was high time for a refresh. The class selection and customization menu screens have been completely redone, with more than just a new coat of paint. Aside from the reworked theming, both menus are linked together now in-game, with your character's 3D model visible throughout.
This upgrade to the whole menu setup also means you can customize before respawning once more!
[h3]
Easier to Read & More Options [/h3]
Our goals with this UI update were to make things clearer and smoother. The text sizes have been increased, as have the icons. You'll no longer need to squint to see these elements if you don't have your nose against your monitor, and item descriptions are always right there next to them.
The customizer also only shows what you want to see when you want to see it, leaving more room for admiring your character model. Just hover over the bar for any item category on the left to reveal its contents and start customizing.
There are even additional shortcuts in customize now...
- A and D (or right analog stick) still allow you to rotate your view left and right
- H (or controller) now hides the item menus so you can get a view of your whole dinosaur
- Double-tap spacebar to quickly exit the customization area and respawn with your currently selected class (if it's available).
The entirety customization and class select menus also have full controller support, with shoulder buttons and triggers used to quickly swap between various tabs and newly updated gamepad prompts.
[h3]
Know Your Enemy, Know Thyself[/h3]
Almost all dinosaurs have some areas that are tougher than others. Pachy in particular has the giant dome skull which deflects small arms fire. Anything that's not armour piercing or explosive will not penetrate the dome.
You can now review each dinosaur's strong points and weak points by flipping through the newly updated class select menu, which has helpful diagrams for each species. The different hit indicators for when you land a shot in each body zone are also displayed for reference.
Every class in the game now has several tips on how to play that you can cycle through on the class selection screen. Check the box in the bottom right corner of class select for hints about various weapons, special abilities, team tactics and more. The vital statistics of each class are also displayed, listing their overall health and stamina.
Additionally, all weapons now have stats you can view by hovering over them in class select. There are three bars revealed which show the damage, range and rate of fire for every element in your arsenal.
[h3]
Loadout Swap (without customizing)[/h3]
Sometimes you just wanna quickly switch to a different gun. Now, it's easier to grab the right tool for the right job. Humans can swap their equipment on class select
without needing to customize.
So, if you want to go from assault rifle to burst rifle, you can now do so with one button press / click while on class select (instead of having to bring up a huge list of items to scroll through).
The limitation with quick swap is that the game can currently only save one customized weapon at a time per loadout slot (primary & secondary). We hope to further improve on this and add more options in future.
[h3]
More to Come[/h3]
That's a lot of big changes to the menus for one update, but we're not done quite yet. We'll be continuing to refine and enhance the new class select and customization in future patches, making them even snappier and snazzier!
[h2]
New Feature:
ROAR REFRESH[/h2]
A new utility for dinosaurs is that in addition to its usual functionality, roars can now "refresh" yourself.
Roar Refresh removes any negative effects such as stamina drain from poison darts or bleeding. It also grants a brief 3 second immunity to de-buffs from the moment the roar key is pressed.
Roar Refresh can quite literally mean the difference between life and death from what we've seen in testing- deploying your roar at the right time can save you from an otherwise lethal overdose or bleeding out. With this change, dino roars are an essential tool for both attacking
and escaping.
[h2]
New Feature:
NET ESCAPE[/h2]
A new ability for Tyrants and Bruisers is being able to free yourself from nets. If you have a roar ready and become netted, you can now use your roar to escape, shredding the net to pieces. The look of trapper nets has been updated as part of this, they now appear constructed of shiny metal wire meshing, and make a distinctive noise when attaching to dinosaurs.
We're hoping that the net escape feature, along with the new Roar Refresh mechanic, makes roaring a much more useful ability for Bruiser and Tyrant players.
[h2]
New Feature:
ARMOUR BLOCKS TRANQUILIZERS[/h2]
This has been a much requested feature, and as of this update it is now a reality. If a dinosaur is hit by a tranquilizer rifle or dartgun in an area that is armoured (strong point) then they receive no damage over time or stamina reduction from that shot. Only the base damage from the dart impact is felt.
This is a particularly important change for Bruisers & Tyrants since the majority of their heads and tails are reinforced, so unless it's a shot to the side they will usually not feel the poison take hold.
[h2]
Updates to Flight[/h2]
One annoying bug we've been wrestling with lately is Flyers will sometimes lose all speed during flight, stopping in midair. This should no longer happen with the latest fixes to flight mechanics.
Another change we've made is that if a Pterosaur flies into a vertical object such as a wall for longer than a split-second, they will now drop out of flight. This is still quite forgiving, and allows flying classes to easily brush past most objects while flying around. The difference is that whacking head-first into a shipping container should more than likely make you plummet out of the sky now.
[h2]
Map Updates[/h2]
A few of our levels have seen some improvements with this update to improve the overall game flow and provide more cover for the dinosaurs. UtilityBase has seen its main gates raised higher, preventing humans from jumping wall to wall and offering a way for dinos to break line of sight with pursuers.
Elsewhere, the DesertionPoint map has seen its trees start to grow back now that the logging company is long gone. The outskirts have greater density of foliage, and bushes have sprouted up within the compound which give added camouflage for players. There are also more spawns out in the woods now so that people don't pop in around the same area as often.
For info on more tweaks to a handful of other maps, you can read the full changelog further down..
[h2]
New Achievements and Challenges[/h2]
This update introduces 4 new achievements to unlock and 9 new weekly challenges. There are several related to our new hard-headed friend among them.
[h2]
Visual Update: NEW Dinosaur Shader[/h2]
We have implemented a new type of subsurface scattering for dinosaurs, that aims to more closely emulate how light filters through skin...
This effect still needs tweaking in a few areas for certain dinosaurs, but even in its first pass we think it gives quite a dramatic effect, particularly when standing in front of sunlight. You can see the details being highlighted on the edge of the Rex's skin here..
[h2]
OFFICIAL SERVER IMPROVEMENTS[/h2]
For this release, we have significantly upgraded the hardware for our official servers. They are now much more robust, less prone to buckling under pressure and we're able to host more of them. Performance should be much improved now as well, with less lag across the board.
If you're wanting to jump right into battle, consider joining one of the gold highlighted options in the server browser!
[h2]
Special Event: MELTDOWN 2.0[/h2]
The release of Pachycephalosaurus coincides with MELTDOWN 2.0, a special in-game event featuring new time-limited items, ultimate skins and much more...
[h3]
Limited Time Store Rotation[/h3]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
The in-game Extinction Store has been refreshed with a brand new set of featured items! These hot new looks include 12 sizzling mutations, including one for our new Pachycephalosaurus class. There are also two taunts for the Pachy, the gleaming Knight Pathfinder outfit, and a bold new feathered Phoenix Pteranodon. Not to mention, the 2021 Meltdown Gift which is filled to bursting with dozens of scintillating new skins.
To view all of the new (
and returning!) content in Meltdown 2.0,
check out our special event Trello page.[h3]
Legendary Sprays[/h3]
Animated and very distracting, these babies are now dropping in-game...
Nuff said.
[h3]
Ultimate Skins, Wave 4.5[/h3]
The second batch of Thalassic skins are here, along with several Ultimate skins for our new Pachycephalosaurus!
As a reminder, ULTIMATE dinosaur skins feature special animated emissive effects that run throughout the body. They are obtainable either as extremely rare drops while playing, or through crafting together 25 legendary items.
THALASSIC ultimates are themed around deep sea bio-luminescent creatures, with intricate strands of pulsating glows emanating from within. They have a vaguely pearlescent appearance, punctuated by dozens of tiny jewel-like orbs that are reminiscent of beautiful nightmares from the dark abyss.
[h2]
Coming Soon...[/h2]
We'll have fresh new store rotations
every two weeks during this autumn, featuring some beautiful community created designs for our new Pachycephalosaurus! Check back regularly for new items!
Full Changelog
[h3]
DINOSAUR CHANGES[/h3]
- NEW BRUISER CLASS: Pachycephalosaurus
- ALL DINOS: roaring now removes negative status effects and grants 3 second immunity
- Increased radius of dilo spit puddle
- Increased speed of stamina drain for humans standing in dilo puddle
- Reduced control lock times for Ceratosaurus attacks
- Made it easier to land critical hits with Cerato's tailswipe attack
- Cerato tailswipe now does more knockback
- Next Gen Netting:
- Tyrants and Cerato can now escape a net if they roar
- Tyrants now play an escape animation when freed from a net (if they don't roar to escape)
- New particle effects for dinosaurs escaping nets (small = sparks, big = net pieces)
- Updated the look of nets to now appear more metallic
- Added new sounds for being netted and escaping nets
- Added more netted vocal sounds for Tyrants
- Fixed netted pain sounds not stopping right away after exiting the netted state
- NEW subsurface scattering effect for dino shader
- Swapped the Spino corpse eating animation
- Added a subtle animation morph of the Cryo's neck bulging when spitting
- If a dino is burned to death, there should be smoke rising from their corpse now
- Fixed character flame emitters constantly resetting when taking extended hits from the flamethrower
- Fixed acid not freeing netted Pterosaurs
- Fixed invisible acid pools
- Fixed bug where dinosaurs can eat and roar at the same time
- Possible fix for roar sounds sometimes cutting out
- Possible fix for Nova's pounce not working under certain conditions.
- Fixed hitting the same enemy twice in a row with charge sometimes (all bruisers)
- Fixed charge impact sounds only being heard by the charging player
- Set species-specific impact sounds for Chargers (carno, cera, pachy, tupa)
- Fixed flesh impact sounds always playing for Carno and Tupa ram animations even when you didn't hit your target
[h3]
MENU / UI CHANGES[/h3]
- NEW fully 3D combined class selection & customize menu
- Added quick-swap for weapons in human class selection
- Added weapon stats on mouse-over to class selection
- Updated scientist class icon on scoreboard
- Fixed "class full" appearing when class is not full anymore
- Added dino diagrams to class selection showing strengths and weaknesses
- Added full gamepad support for customization and class select
- A countdown is now shown for dinosaurs saying how long they have left before auto-spawning.
- Forced spawn for dinosaurs now pops you in as the class you're currently looking at in customization/class select (provided that class isn't full)
[h3]
MAP CHANGES[/h3]
- Fixed extra time not being added instantly when a GTTC point is captured
- Added new foliage cover and more water sources to DesertionPoint
- A bunch of collision adjustments on DesertionPoint to prevent humans going where they shouldn't
- Fixed the roof of Verdant's main building being non-solid in places
- Raised the main gates of UtilityBase to prevent humans jumping from wall to wall
- Added more tree cover around the Airbase helipad
- Tweaks to Airbase map visuals (better water leaks, darker fog)
- Fixed some lag on the main menu map
- Updated customization area on the main menu map
- Upscaled a few environment textures
[h3]
OTHER CHANGES[/h3]
- NEW achievements and challenges!
- NEW legendary animated spray drops
- Fixed bruiser class cooldown in Get To The Chopper only working for Carnotaurus
- Updated human physics assets (disabled collision traces on their arms)
- Reduced max damage distance for all weapons (you could be damaged literally miles away before)
- Updated the longifrons acro mesh
- Various other mutation and skin fixes
- Started process of reworking dino skins that use the old pattern system (more to come soon!)
- Added a couple of missing economy icons
- Crash fixes for Survival mode
- Fixed oversized hunt raptor collars
- Various optimizations including performance boosts for core AI and UI code
- Various updates to Steamworks libraries
[h2]
Thank you![/h2]
Without the support of our dedicated community, this update and its new class would not be a reality.
The efforts of dozens of artists and testers in the Primal Carnage: Extinction fanbase helped the development team bring our Pachycephalosaurus to life!
From the exquisite character modelling skills of Mr. Troodon, to the texturing finesse of Velociboy and ArchShiranui, the close-knit testing group with committed bug stompers such as Alijar, Gyula and ToaMetru, and many, many more... We thank you all once again for your dedication!
And a big thankyou to all of our players for joining us on this wild ride!
[h3]
Now go headbutt something...[/h3]
-The Primal Carnage Team
