Game Pass First Impressions: Second Extinction

By Tom West,

What do you get if you build a nuclear power plant in Jurassic Park? A Second Extinction. Although, contrary to the game’s name, these mutated dinosaurs look to be thriving, and it’s humans that are facing their first extinction. But being the boneheaded mammals that we are, we're taking the fight back to the overgrown lizards with as much firepower as possible in an attempt to eradicate them.

xbox game pass first impressions second extinction

That’s exactly where I’m going to start — guns, explosions, lots of things that go boom. Killing dinosaurs is Second Extinction's bread and butter, and I think Systemic Reaction has done a fantastic job when it comes to gunplay. Weapon handling takes a moment to adjust to due to the arcade nature of the game, but once you click with it, the game shines as a fantastic FPS experience. From the off, you have access to miniguns, grenade launchers, shotguns, and rifles that can all benefit from upgrades and perks, allowing you to create a weapon build that suits your playstyle and helping you stay powerful as you crank up the difficulty of the game. I settled on a trusty Scout Rifle — I'll typically play as a Sniper/Ranger class when given the option, and have done for the last 15 years of my life. It’s way too late for me to change my ways now — and hot damn, it’s so much fun to quick-scope dinos as they swarm you. Bullets tear through the beasts like a hot knife through butter, blasting limbs off and causing raptors to almost combust from the sheer power of the weapons' might. My personal favourite way of decimating dinos, though, is sending them skywards like you just hit them with a starship. This could be a bug, but I hope it’s something that stays because it has a tendency to cause an outburst of raucous laughter from myself each and every time it happens (I'm a sick man).

The game features two game modes: a campaign called Tundra that tasks you with completing a set of main mission objectives, and Expedition, which serves as a free-roam mode. Interestingly, though, the campaign is completely open-world just like in Expedition. The only difference is the addition of the main mission objectives that need completing before you can extract. Having the world fully accessible during the campaign is a great way of giving players the choice of finishing the mission quickly or sticking around to explore the world, and trust me when I say you’ll want to stay and have a look around. Mooching around the world offers up small objectives such as capturing Raptors, destroying nests, and other bonus missions to earn extra upgrade materials, which are invaluable for powering up your weapons to access the higher game difficulties. But the absolute best reason to peruse the world is really just the quality of the visuals: the game is stunning! I found that a large portion of my time was spent gawking at picturesque scenery. Catching the sun beaming through a mountain peak as you make your way across the frozen wasteland, or the glimpse of Raptors in the distance as you emerge from a cave and your eyes adjust to the light... even the huge ball of flame that encompasses everything in its path when you trigger explosives in a dino nest is both beautiful and deadly. The lighting and particle effects in this game should seriously be a good enough reason for you to pick it up and have a look. You’ll fill up your screenshot folder quicker than you can say T-Rex.

Ahh, the T-Rex, the poster child of the dinosaur world and the heavyweight champion of Second Extinction’s dino opponents. This giant creature offers plenty of challenge for players that are 'lucky' enough to come across it and really won't go down without a fight. Finding the T-Rex is quite possibly one of the game’s best difficulty spikes, and battling it out on the higher mission difficulties will definitely put your skills to the test. The dynamic nature of the game means that every location randomly generates the encounters you'll discover. Head into the high threat zones to track down this beast and put your game difficulty on Hard or Insane for the greatest challenge — I accept no responsibility for any broken controllers that may occur from tackling that excursion.

As a disclaimer, it’s worth noting that Second Extinction is still in Game Preview and a work-in-progress. I’ve encountered quite a few bugs, crashes, freezes, and other small niggles while playing, but nothing game-breaking. To be honest, the core experience of the game is that good I completely looked past any inconvenience.

Summary

I'd recommend that you play Second Extinction if you like guns, dinosaurs, or shooting dinosaurs with guns. It’s a great experience and one that I’ll happily be playing for quite a while longer. The achievements look to be mostly made up of cumulative challenges with nothing looking to be too skill-based, bar killing a T-Rex with a supply drop. Second Extinction is an action-packed ride from the moment you boot the game up and is well worth experiencing. I look forward to seeing what additional content is added to the game in the future, in the hopes of having something new to explore.

Tom spent around 16 hours taking the fight to the dinosaurs in Second Extinction on Xbox Series X. He unlocked 19 of the game's achievements and is yet to kill a T-Rex with a supply drop (not for lack of trying).

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Written by Tom West

Tom has been playing video games since he was old enough to hold a controller, experimenting with a number of systems until he eventually fell in love with Xbox. With a passion for the platform, he decided to make a career out of it, and now happily spends his days writing about that which he loves. If he’s not hunting for Xbox achievements, you’ll likely find him somewhere in The Elder Scrolls Online or fighting for survival in Battlefield.