It seems like nowadays; every developer waits on a great idea and tries to make it their own. For example, at the moment Player Unknown Battleground turned into a great success; different companies try to implement this “Battle Royale” mode into their game. This mode has to be the same, people will like it, but it has to be different enough to attract other players. Some companies even re-make the mode and make it even better but few of those developers succeed. Extinction tries to re-build a formula already known in the gaming world, but will it manage to be “unique” enough to stand out from the crowd? You can read all about it in this review.
Extinction’s story is about a raging war that’s going on throughout the ages. For generations, the humans have been searching for new lands to expand their kingdom, unfortunately, this hasn’t been going unnoticed by the Ravenii. Ravenii are big Ogres that enjoy demolishing kingdoms and ruining people’s lives. It’s up to the members of an ancient order to defend humanity’s kingdom from these monstrosities. Unfortunately, not many members of this order are alive… You play as Avil, one of the last defenders, equipped with a powerful sword that shall oppose the Ravenii’s outbursts and prevent the extinction of humanity. Unfortunately, the story feels underwhelming and forgettable, once you noticed that it only feels like glue, holding the pieces together. There are some cutscenes that make the story a lot more fun to watch but these are very limited. Most of the time, you’re just listening to what some of the story characters are saying. These characters are only presented by a portrait on the screen, except for Avil, which is a bit of a bummer. It didn’t make me feel like I had an emotional bond with the characters and I couldn’t care less about the problems they were facing. I really think they could have made this way more exciting.
If you played Attack on Titan or Shadow of the Colussus, Extinction’s gameplay shouldn’t be anything new. The game looks like a reworked telling of the story of “David and Goliath”, luckily for the player you’re equipped with the finest equipment and the best set of skills to go head-to-head with these monstrous beasts. Avil, our sentinel, can climb up walls and Ogres like it’s nothing and he does it with incredible speed. A true Ninja that aims his sharpened blade to several limbs and necks to eliminate the target. Extinction puts you in several situations where you have to complete certain objectives to be successful and progress through the story. These objectives are mostly the same and go from eliminating the attacking Ravenii to extracting as much of the people as you can. Your hero can climb up walls, jump of tailored roofs and swing his whip to get some momentum and eventually land on top of the Ravenii. Throughout the mission, you’ll have to extract the people and eliminate smaller foes to power up your sword. Once the sword is powered up, you’ll be able to kill a Ravenii. From the moment you’ve killed a Ravenii, the blade’s power will drain to a minimum, so you’ll have to power it up again before you’re going to the next target. If there aren’t enough mobs to kill or people to extract, you can always go for the armor the Ravenii’s wearing. For each armor you destroy or limb you cut off, you’ll also gain some power but most of the time it won’t be enough to fully power up your sword unless you have gained a certain skill that can be purchased in the skill menu.
The money that’s being used to upgrade or purchase any skills can be gained by playing the missions as best as you can. Each mission will give you different objectives to complete but do know that there will only be one “main objective”. The moment you’ve completed your main objective, the mission will end, and you’ll have to play the mission again to complete certain “side objectives”. The more objectives you complete, the more currency you’ll gather to power up your skills.
“There’s also very little to do, other than defending the town from its attackers.”
It’s a straightforward system that works but it can become repetitive very quickly. The developers try to implement a bit more variety by offering missions that will be “randomly customized” before you start the mission. These side objectives can be time trials, destroying an amount of armor, extracting people, kill Ravenii with his body and limbs still intact, … It’s an okay touch to bring some variety but there’s nothing “too special” that’ll boost the game’s gameplay to a more amusing way to play. It’s just like assembling the same painting but you randomized the coordinates of the planted foliage, buildings, extracting points and the composition of the Ravenii’s. The environments still feel empty even when there’s this pool of randomizing factors. There’s also very little to do, other than defending the town from its attackers. You can’t interact with other characters or do a mission that’s more special than just “defend the city”.
The Ravenii come with different sets of armor and that’s definitely a great way to implement a bit of strategy for the whole game. You have wooden armor sets that can be taken out very easily, but there are also steel armor sets that are unbreakable. This gives the player a bit of an opening to think about his strategy before he attacks the big giant. You’ll have to use the environment like buildings, trees or “reachable vantage tops with your whip” to get to the head of the beast. Also, some armor sets are more difficult to break than others, or they come with a more “special approach”. Steal and gold armor sets come with armor pieces that have been locked by locks. The player first has to remove all locks before the armor pieces crumble down. Iron armor sets only have one lock, but you’ll have to break them twice before they’re removed. Gold armor pieces have more locks, but these locks only need one strike to be removed. The armor pieces that need a more “special approach” can be found on the enchanted armor sets. You have bone armor which has “enchanted locks”. These locks have flames inside and if the flames are lit, the lock is unbreakable. You’ll have to wait for the Ravenii’s attack because this attack will deplete the flames within the lock and that’s the moment you’ll have to strike. There are also armor sets that have spikes on top of them, these spikes must be crossed very carefully because these armor sets can damage you. These armor sets give the player a challenge, especially when time’s running out and you’ll have to replay the mission if you fail.
The gameplay of Extinction can be enjoyable, but this can only be achieved when everything else works properly. There were a lot of times the movement capabilities of my hero felt awkward and not fluently. His movement works like the Assassin’s Creed franchise without holding any buttons. He just climbs when you’re moving up a building or the back of an ogre and this system can work, but since you don’t have a button to activate this “ability”, you don’t feel in control. I often fell down because the movement abilities malfunctioned and this “feature” is key when you want to be successful in this game because a lot of the missions are time trialed. The combat is a bit boring because it just doesn’t feel challenging or pleasant. It’s a bit weird that as a member of the last defenders, I don’t feel powerful when I’m fighting against smaller foes. I just feel like one button offers fewer combinations than the use of more buttons. It just leans into button mashing all the time and that’s it. It quickly becomes repetitive and boring. The only time I feel powerful is when I’m taking a Ravenii down, but this is also because of the “Killing Strike” that only needs one button and a bit of targeting and even then, it doesn’t work how it’s supposed to. I often fell down a Ravenii because my killing strike didn’t go through even though I was aiming correctly, released at the best moment without getting any damage from the Ravenii itself. Another thing, I would like to mention is the “hitbox” of the Ravenii’s attack… this is immense, especially in the air. They can knock you out mid-air, even when it doesn’t feel like they would have touched “normally”.
It’s also not a good thing when you can’t customize your camera controls. Especially when a game focuses on the use of an ability that relies on your camera. The camera is often too slow to feel like a fluent killer. These types of games should be a bit more fast-paced and the camera controls just slows down your “flow”. It would be great if we could optimize the controls that can make the game feels more “natural”. Even the dodging feels slow and can’t be used properly.
“The game also offers a couple of modes to keep the player interested, but only for a brief moment.”
One of the more annoying features within this game is the constant commentary of your in-game partner and king. From the moment you die, or things are or aren’t going your way, these people comment you like you’re failing the cause. I often talked to the game, hoping they would stop commentating because it felt tremendously frustrating. You can skip these talks, but only a couple of them. If you played a mission a couple of times, it can be time-wasting when these characters tell the same thing repeatedly. Especially when each mission also takes a long time to load. All of these little factors reduced the enjoyment of this game.
The game also offers a couple of modes to “keep the player interested” but only or a brief moment. You have a skirmish mode that’ll paint you a “new” environment and give you randomizing “side objectives” to complete. This mode is a more of an “online competition” where you can compete against other players to get the highest score and the best ranking. There’s also “Extinction mode” that’s more of a constant flow of attacking enemies and you must do your best to stay alive as long as you can. It’s more of the same when you’re playing the “story mode”. There’s also a “Daily Challenge” that offers a mix of objectives on a certain map.
Conclusion:
Extinction has its good moments but after each game session, it leaves me frustrated. There are so many things that can be patched up to make the game a lot more enjoyable. The loading times should be reduced, and we should be able to skip the conversations fully except for a small part of the dialogue. The graphics are okay and the cutscenes help to get yourself through the game. However, the story is forgettable and even the gameplay doesn’t bring anything new to the game, especially because of the game’s repetitive missions and copy/ paste “special” modes. The game is enjoyable for the first hour but you’ll quickly become bored due to the lack of variety. If you’re looking for a game that looks a lot like this one, I should suggest Shadow of the Colossus or even Attack on Titan 2, because these game make the experience a lot more enjoyable, even though they play the same way.
