Primal Reign: The Age of New Kings · published · build 25170717
Primal Reign: The Age of New Kings has reached one of the biggest milestones in its development.
For the first time, we can now play the game [b]from the opening sequence all the way to the ending.[/b]
Not a vertical slice.
Not a collection of finished levels.
The whole adventure.
Dinosaurs. Guns. Ancient ruins. Vehicles. Swimming. Companions. Cinematic cutscenes. Terrible decisions involving prehistoric animals.
It's all there.
It's time to dive on in.
Primal Reign has been in development for some years, built during long evenings and around the edges of everything else.
What began as an idea for a VR dinosaur adventure gradually became something much bigger: a full story-driven journey combining exploration, physical VR interaction, weapons, characters, cinematic sequences and some extremely monstrous beasts that would very much like you to stop existing.
This was never meant to be a simple VR shooting gallery.
I wanted to build an adventure.
The kind of adventure we all grew up with, from Tomb Raider to The Mummy Returns and Indiana Jones.
A bit of exploration.
A bit of mystery.
The kind of adventure we all grew up watching and playing, from your Tomb Raiders to Mummy Returns and Indie Jones, a little bit of exploration slathered in some absolute madness.
Primal Reign takes you through a complete campaign built specifically around VR.
You'll explore huge environments and handle weapons physically pulling every mag and slamming the clips into the weapon.
Travel through ancient ruins whilst relighting dark rooms, dodging booby-traps and shimmying around those high up edged.
Climb aboard things you probably shouldn't.
Meet characters who may or may not improve your chances of survival.
And, naturally, encounter dinosaurs, mummies and other hideous creatures.
So take a leap across a set of spikes, tumble over a waterfall.
If you fall to your demise down a vertical shaft, you'll get back in and give it another bash.
Primal Reign isn’t afraid to grab the reins occasionally and put on a show.
Cinematic bars slide in.
The action kicks off around you.
Characters take over the scene.
Things go wrong.
And then the bars disappear and you’re dumped straight back into the adventure.
Sometimes you’ll be watching the disaster unfold.
The aim was always to make those moments feel like you’ve been dropped into the middle of an adventure film.
Mostly.
Primal Reign’s creatures come in all shapes, sizes and levels of enthusiasm for eating you.
Some hunt.
Some fly.
Some shoot.
Some nibble at your ankles.
Some appear during carefully choreographed sequences.
And some just turn up at precisely the worst possible moment.
I want encountering them to feel like an event.
Sometimes they’ll make you leap out of your skin.
Other times you’ll fancy setting the thing alight with your flame torch.
And occasionally a raptor will enter the situation just to make sure everything is properly ruined.
Physical interaction has always been central to Primal Reign.
Your weapons aren't attached to your hands.
They're objects.
Your magazines are objects.
Your equipment exists physically around you.
You pick things up.
You load weapons.
You carry ammunition.
You drop things.
You lose things.
And sometimes, while attempting to reload under pressure, you discover exactly how great you are fumbling in the worst possible moments.
That physicality is one of the things I love about VR, did you find something useful?
Keep hold of it.
You might be very glad you did ten minutes later.
Primal Reign launches into Early Access as a complete, playable story campaign from beginning to end.
That doesn’t mean I’m finished with it.
I've always used Early Access to polish the experience with real players inside it, tuning encounters, performance, lighting, comfort and anything else you lot manage to break in ways I somehow never considered.
There are huge environments, prehistoric jungles, ancient ruins, caves, waterways, cinematic sequences and plenty of moments where the sensible option would probably be to turn around and go home.
Naturally, you won’t.
Your feedback during Early Access will help me refine the beast into its final form.
Put on the headset.
Check your weapon.
Make sure you’ve actually loaded it.
And get on your jolly.
I hope you enjoy discovering this world as much as I’ve enjoyed building it, and occasionally suffered through creating it too.
Primal Reign has been an enormous undertaking.
It’s survived years of on-and-off development, rebuilding, experimentation, abandoned ideas, rewritten systems, ridiculous bugs, breakthroughs and more late nights than I’d probably like to tally.
There were plenty of moments where making a story-driven dinosaur adventure of this scale entirely in VR felt like an unreachable finish line.
To everyone who has followed the project, watched our videos, sent us messages, wishlisted the game or simply returned every now and then to check whether this strange British dinosaur VR project was still alive:
Thank you
It is very much alive.
You helped make reaching this moment mean something.
And now there's only one thing left to say.
Looks like you found yourself a nice gooey mummy
Keep an eye on the trees.
And whatever happens…