We said last year that Second Extinction's "janky co-op dino shooting shows potential," but that it could probably stand a little more time in Early Access. Almost a year down the road, it's come a long way, and today developer Systemic Reaction unveiled the details of its biggest update yet.
Revealed last year, Second Extinction is a co-op shooter that sees dinosaurs reclaiming the world, forcing humanity to haul ass and hole up in orbital stations. From there, they send teams back down to the surface every now and then to complete missions and fight back against dinos.
The big Pre-Season 6 update has a lot going on, including a new gameplay mode called Emergency Landing: Horde Mode. It's exactly what it sounds like: Your dropship has crashed, and you're stuck on the surface with nothing but a pistol. Lucky for you, putting down waves of dinos—"hordes," you might say—earns credits that enable the purchase of new and better equipment, so death will not be immediate. Live long enough and you might earn a spot on the leaderboards (and some attendant rewards), which are on the way "soon."
This is what it looks like:
The update will also add a new character named Sunetra, a researcher and support character who reduces incoming damage for squadmates and can deploy pheromones that cause nearby dinos to turn on each other. Sunetra brings the total number of playable characters to six.
Full crossplay between Xbox One, Xbox Series S and X, and Steam, Epic, and the Microsoft Store will be enabled in the update, as will in-game voice chat and matchmaking lobbies. Fallen enemies will begin to drop unique "augments" that grant characters new abilities and customization options, a new wardrobe option will let players check out every item in the game without having to unlock them, and—of course—there will be new contracts to take on and rewards to earn.
Second Extinction's Pre-Season 6 update is set to go live on September 30. More info on the game is up at secondextinctiongame.com.