A new update for Primal Carnage: Extinction is now available on Steam!

Patch 2.9.8 resolves numerous bugs whilst introducing several quality of life improvements for moment to moment gameplay (with more on the way).

The full changelog is further below, but let's check out some of the more important updates first...




We introduced healing over time for the floating medkits this halloween, but felt they may have put the humans at just slightly too much of a disadvantage. We decided to keep the feature, but time to heal is now quicker and you receive more health when you grab one. Should give the mercs a leg up.

Pyro's new toy - the Flame Slammer, has a few balance adjustments. With so many explosions going off, we decided to give him less reserve ammo for the incendiary launcher and more slugs for the under-barrel shotgun, since he had way too much of the former and not quite enough of the latter. The incendiary grenades don't burn quite so hot now either, with their after-burn damage cut in half.



The venerable Flamesaw has gained a little extra utility, now able to remove Dilophosaurus venom pools with fire in addition to Cryo acid puddles. It won't leave a firepool behind, but will nullify the status effects. We're still working on some new visuals for it, but the functionality is solid.

Many of the changes we've been exploring for the human team are about making the mercenaries less of a chore to play, smoothing things out and making it easier to use certain abilities. To that end, the machete can now properly do charged heavy attacks while sprinting (it also does more bleed damage).

A couple of weapons including the M4 Carbine and Poison Dart Rifle have received improvements to their aim down sights functionality, with the weapon positions and the models themselves being updated to make aiming much more comfortable.

Finally, if you enjoy playing an electrician, zap traps and the stungun have received a bit of love...



The traps now have a greater zapping radius and trigger faster, with better detection of targets. For the stungun, it now charges much quicker and can reload a little faster. We also fixed a couple of bugs that were preventing these two from working as intended in some cases.

There are more gameplay improvements like these coming in future updates. Right now we're looking at giving the stungun multiple shots before needing to reload, and we'll be continuing to refine the weapons in general.




The raptor pounce aiming functionality has been reworked slightly, to make it easier to do the kind of pounce you really want to. Aiming pounces now has a charge-up period, where the indicator shows as yellow before it is ready.

During this charge-up time, you will still do a "quick pounce" forwards instead of using the aimed arc. So it should be less likely you do an aimed pounce when tapping the button to do a regular pounce now.



Pachy mobility has been a big focus for us the last month or so in testing, trying to find a better spot for it in relation to the other Bruisers and wanting its roar to be more useful. With this update, Pachy's base speed is now slower but the roar significantly increases its charge speed. The trade-off is that you cannot turn very well at high velocity. This means the Pachy can still be a speed demon so long as it has the roar active, whilst giving the human players a bit more of a chance to actually hit them.

Charge impact damage for Pachy has also been reduced to a maximum of 60, as even though it is the thickest-headed of the Bruisers, it is still the smallest.

For the spitters, we've expanded the utility of Dilo's fire extinguish ability by allowing charged spit to put out Tyrants and Bruisers that are on fire. Being a small-fry, the Pachy can be extinguished with regular spit. Additionally, bear traps can now be destroyed / deactivated by acid.



This update introduces a new targeting indicator for charged spit, which uses a series of dots instead of the arc line we had before. It is a more accurate representation of where the spit will land, while also being more performance friendly to render (low end PCs and console experienced slowdown when aiming previously). Note that the visuals are not final, and we may swap to a different technique in future.

Back to bear traps, the Acro's stomp attack can now deactivate them! We have also expanded Acro's stomp to have a larger radius with a bump in impact damage to make it more effective.



Finally, there's a number of glitches and exploits resolved for dinosaurs this update such as Tyrants bracing in moments where they shouldn't. For a full list scroll down to the changelog below.




Yep! More store sales are coming, the first being a community-selected Lucky Dip today. 36 classic items are back with a discount for a limited time in-store, get 'em before they're gone!

And later this month, we're bringing in a selection of brand new Autumnal items, so keep an eye out this Thanksgiving for a rotation that's sure to see a flock of Oviraptors descend on the store again.



Elsewhere, we'll be adding more mugs, posters, mousemats and stickers to the official merch store!



Looking ahead, the winter update will be dropping mid-December with the usual horde of holiday cosmetics, along with further fixes and gameplay adjustments as seen in this patch.



We're looking into a lot of small but meaningful additions, from expanded flight controls to healing tranq darts for scientist. Remember, you can always help us test new features and provide feedback by joining the official Discord server to participate in Open Testing!

That said, although we're trying to address any issues we can on the PC side where possible, much of our time is still devoted towards releasing our new PlayStation beta. We hope to share full details about the console carnage soon - sign up on the official website for more news.

--The Primal Carnage Team

• Faster healing from health pickups
  
• Increased initial health gain from +12 to +20 (total HP regained is now +100)
  
  
• The machete can now strike and be charged up whilst sprinting
  
• Doubled bleed damage amount from machete
  
  
• Increased base scope sensitivity on weapons that have aim down sights
  
• Modified ironsights for the M4 Carbine to be properly centered and less obstructive
  
• Adjusted ironsights for Poison Dart Rifle so the view is less obscured and properly centered
  
  
• Reduced stungun charge time by about 40%
  
• Reduced stungun reload time from 2.5 to 2.3 seconds
  
• Fixed stungun not applying extra damage when charged
  
  
• Zap trap now arms itself quicker
  
• Zap trap now fires faster, with shorter re-fire delay
  
• Fixed zaptrap does no damage when tail is above it
  
• Added a radius for how close zap traps can be placed next to each other
  
  
• Reduced flame slammer incendiary round reserve ammo from 14 to 10
  
• Increased flame slammer slug shotgun rounds reserve ammo from 25 to 35
  
• Reduced "afterburn" damage for the flame slammer by 50%
  
  
• Cryo acid pools that have been set on fire now have a shorter hurt interval and more damage
  
• Pyro can now remove Dilophosaur venom pools with the flamethrower
  
• Added a new venom puddle destroy effect
  
• Fixed pyro chainsaw shaking the camera forever if he dies while using it
  
  
• Dilo venom puddles no longer stop humans healing from pickups
  
• Dilo venom poison effect is now cancelled when collecting a health pickup
  
  
• (heavy) melee cancels out of scope view
  
• Fixes for human customization & class select animations
  
• Optimizations and updates to certain weapon particle effects
  
• Increased volume and radius of air travel sounds for various explosives
  
• Added sounds to regular pathfinder 3rd person melee animations

• Acro can now deactivate / destroy bear traps with its stomp attack
  
• Increased radius of Acro stomp damage from 550 to 680
  
• Increased max Acro stomp damage from 190 to 200
  
  
• Raptor pounce aim indicator is now "charged" up after ~1 second
  
• Aimed pounce now shows as yellow when not ready
  
• If you pounce and indicator is yellow, you'll still be "quick pouncing"
  
• Shortened pounce timeout for novaraptor
  
  
• Fixed being able to initiate bracing as Tyrant after you have started eating a victim
  
• Attempt to mitigate Flyers not landing when hitting the ground at extreme angles
  
  
• Added a couple more strong points in Carno's tail
  
• Fixed some holes in the collision mesh of Spino's tail
  
  
• Reduction to Pachy base movement speed
  
• Pachy now takes longer to reach charge speed
  
• Slower turning rate at high speeds for Pachy
  
• Roaring no longer improves Pachy charge turning rate
  
• Quicker charge acceleration with roar active
  
• Minor reduction to max charge speed and slide speed of Pachy
  
• Fixed sprint speed resetting when toggling sprint during a roar as Pachy
  
  
• Pachy charge now deals minimum 30 damage, max 60 damage
  
• Increased knockback from Pachy charge impacts
  
• Reduced intensity of Pachy un-roared charge breath sounds
  
  
• Fixed spit disappearing when hitting bear traps
  
• Fixed beatraps not being destroyed and not granting EXP if a Cryo spits acid on them
  
• Dilophosaurus charged spit can now extinguish Tyrants and Bruisers that are on fire
  
• Pachy now counts as a "small dino" and can be put out by regular dilo spit + puddles
  
  
• Experimental: swapped the targeting indicator for charged spit to use a trail of dots instead of a beam arc - this is slightly more accurate and easier to render
  
  
• Fixed being able to cancel spit animations by biting
  
• Fixed dilo spits don't hit dinos / don't extinguish them in some cases
  
• Raised minimum cryo acid impact damage to 35
  
  
• Updated Dilatatum Carno model
  
• Fixed up Albertensis Cerato model
  
• Adjustments to a couple of Spino models
  
• Fixed some inconsistency issues with a few Spino skins

• Increased the Near view distance setting by 65%
  
• Resolved physics warnings on a few attachment meshes
  
• Various code and server logging optimizations
  
• Servers now log fewer events to improve performance
  
  
• Fixed avatars in spectator module
  
• Fixed it being possible for the game to award you +0 EXP
  
• Updated ranking progress bar to hopefully display more accurately
  
• Fixed bugs with incorrect damage attribution for fall damage, falling out of world and net kills
  
• Possible fix for kill credit sometimes not being correctly awarded for flame slammer kills
  
  
• Added a new UI sound for getting a kill assist
  
  
• Optimized a bunch of character assets to use less memory
  
  
• Re-worded a challenge due to "tranq rifle" changes
  
• Fixed the "Headshot Kill 15 Dinos" challenge only working if it literally caused head loss
  
• Fixed a few item name / description errors
  
• Updated credits with more community contributors

This patch addresses a few issues that slipped through with the major Halloween Horrors update, and improves overall stability.

• Increased poison dart rifle clip size by 1
  
• Increased poison dart rifle rate of fire by 10%
  
• Slight increased to accuracy of poison dart rifle
  
• Decreased stamina cost for Tyrant bracing a bit
  
• Fixed cryo acid pools being able to overlap each other
  
• Fixed an issue where kill credit was not shown correctly for dart kills in some cases
  
  
• Fixed dinos sometimes not triggering correct sounds / animations when entering death state from poison darts
  
  
• Added new status effect icons that show for dinos when they have the poison status from the poison dart rifle
  
  
• Survival mode: fixed the upgraded sniper rifle having swapped 3rd and 1st person firing sounds
  
• Improved server stability, fixed some verbose logging that was causing slowdown
  
• Set a proportional limit of 4 on Bruisers in Get To The Chopper mode by default
  
• Fixed turrets in GTTC mode being non-hostile
  
• Fixed a lighting error on GTTC RuthlessSnow
  
  
• Resolved issues with Deformus, Trickster, Imperius, Reflected Ruby Cerato items
  
• Fixed polarized sunglasses having same colour as hipster sunglasses
  
• Improved facial animation weighting on Trapper character models
  
• Small fix/tweak to a Cryo mutation mesh
  
• Fixed a few description typo's

Halloween Horrors is in full effect, with spooky drops and a horrifying horde of new looks in-store! The event concludes on November 14th, plenty of time to scare yourself silly. Thanks for playing, and..



-The Primal Carnage Team

A terrifying new game update is now live for Primal Carnage: Extinction on Steam!

We're celebrating the season of fear (and Primal Carnage's 10th anniversary) with Halloween Horrors!

An epic special event featuring spooktacular new looks, scarily good upgrades to numerous gameplay features, and mortifying amount of bugfixes.

Read on at your peril!




After all these years, Angus got tired of waiting around and decided to do it himself...



Cobbled together from spare parts, the Flame Slammer is a trademarked McLaughlin Special, featuring a combined incendiary grenade launcher and slam-firing shotgun attachment!



The pyro's new toy allows him to better deal with foes at longer range, flinging fire bombs that instantly ignite anything in the blast radius! Though unlike a molotov, they don't stick around. You get two in the pipe before needing to reload.



For close quarters combat, the slam-fire shotgun shoots slug shells instead of regular pellets. This actually makes it surprisingly accurate (and lethal) so long as you have good aim...

We're hoping this is a fine additional to Pyros arsenal, allowing him to be a bit more effective at crowd control and providing a slightly different playstyle to the usual flaming and sawing. Thanks again to all of the testing crew who helped us refine it over the last couple months!





A lot of players have been asking for this one for quite a while now, and the halloween update is our first implementation of it. Tyrant Bracing allows you to take reduced damage, at the cost of stamina. This is useful for Rexes, Acros and Spinos who want to battle up close or protect their team by absorbing aggro.

Tyrants that are bracing receive 80% less damage from all sources than they would previously.

To enter bracing mode, simply hold the "crouch" button for a moment and your Tyrant will duck their head down to the ground with a growl. To stay braced, you must continue holding crouch (you can enable toggle crouch if you like). Release crouch to exit brace.

The ability slowly drains your stamina, but any incoming damage will also chip away at it. This means you can't just brace forever. Attacking or eating will also cancel the ability, so be mindful.



After much deliberation, we decided to revamp the dart-based weapons to make it clearer what each does and give the more defined roles. They are less about damage over time, more focused on specific status effects.

The "tranq rifle" is now the Poison Dart Rifle, and is designed around sustained damage dealing.



We have made the damage numbers better communicate how the dosage mechanic works with this weapon, where successive shots can deal more damage. Basically, poison darts inflict the poisoned status effect, where each consecutive dart hit deals more damage if you hit them quick enough (up to a point).

Once a dinosaur has been hit by enough poison darts, they are fully dosed and enter the poisoned death state. After two seconds of lumbering around they succumb to the poison and die. Dinosaurs can avoid reaching this state by roaring, which removes half of the poison dosage. However, once you are fully dosed with poison there is no going back.

The "dartgun" is now officially labelled the Tranquillizer Pistol and is focused purely on stamina drain.



Unlike the poison dart rifle, the tranquillizer pistol barely deals any damage. However, it is ruthlessly effective at removing the stamina of enemies (if you can manage to hit them!).

Draining all of a dinosaur's stamina with tranquillizers puts them into the fully tranquillized state, which prevents stamina recovery and slows their movements. Yes, the tyrants are back to tail dragging.

Being fully tranquillized lasts for 3 seconds, but can be extended slightly if a scientist keeps shooting tranq darts into their target. Once a dinosaur exits the fully tranquillized state, they have a quarter of their stamina automatically restored.

We think these changes make the weapons more interesting to use and fight against, with scientists needing to keep the pressure on in order to deal good damage with the poison dart rifle or to fully tranquillize with the tranq pistol.





With Pachycephalosaurus, we tried something different when it came to charging. Unfortunately, the manually activated charge proved too confusing to most players, or just plain awkward. For the sake of consistency and to make it a tad easier to get to grips with the class, we have changed it to have an automatically activated charge.

This means that Pachy now behaves closer to the other Bruiser classes, building up to top speed where it can charge enemies. As a side effect of this, all of the Bruisers now let out a bellow when they have reached high enough speed to deal charge damage.

There are other changes to the Pachy, all based around making it a little speed demon. Remember to use your Roar Ability to gain a massive boost to maneuverability! The Pachy's roar enables higher jump height, faster turning and more damaging charge hits. We're hoping this makes it fit in better with the other Bruisers and makes it more fun to use!




We've been hard at work refining mechanics and fixing issues these past few months. This update includes dozens of quality of life improvements, from making weapons less clunky, to refining flyer movement, and diving deep into the guts of the game's code to rework dinosaur hit detection.

Melee attacks by dinosaurs should now be much more reliable and we are working on improvements to movement replication for future patches as well. There's still a few edge cases (pounce continues to be problematic depending on the angle of attack) but we've made a lot of progress.

You can check out the frankly scary amount of changes in the full "fright log" further down, but of course there's a certain seasonal event now underway...




Back for another year of mortifying mutations and spooktacular skins, Halloween Horrors returns to Primal Carnage: Extinction on Steam!



From ghostly Dilophosaurs to simply beastly Commandos, the in-game store is full of frightening new items. A second generation of Royal Acro skins has arrived to challenge the throne, and there's a brand new Halloween Gift packed full of scary good new looks to frighten a whole server with!



Another frighteningly good set of Ultimate Human Skins is also debuting this update, the KILOWATTS!



Kilowatt Humans are cybernetically enhanced, augmented with technology - their skin is alive with the patterns of their inner circuitry shining through! These electrifying new looks can be obtained either as ultra rare drops or by crafting 25 legendary human skins together.

You can view the whole horrifying selection on our spooky event Trello page!




Just about 10 years ago, on October 31st 2012, the original Primal Carnage game was released. That means the franchise is about to hit its 10th anniversary! Time flies when you're killing dinos...

To celebrate the occasion we're going to have a free 10th Anniversary Gift, which is a personal gift just for you. Keep an eye on the official discord server closer to the anniversary date for a special code to enter in-store for you to receive your gift!

Opening the anniversary gift grants a collection of themed sprays, a couple of nostalgia glasses, one memorable Carnotaurus skin and more!



But that's not all, there are other blasts from the past to commemorate 10 years as well - opening this year's Halloween Gift will grant you the Precursor Pachy - the original prototype Pachycephalosaurus from when it was being considered for the first Primal Carnage! We dusted it off and made it work with our own Pachy's rig. The creature is a little.. strange.. but certainly fits the horror theme!



On a similar note, the Precursor Rex is also available as a Legendary drop today! This grey and brown beastie was the first Tyrannosaurus ever created for Primal Carnage, before we got to the Big Daddy we all know and love. A wonderfully bumpy throwback with something of a mean look to him!

We were hoping to share a bit more about the PlayStation side of Primal Carnage as part of our celebrations, but that needs a bit more time in the oven just yet. It shouldn't be long now though.

As always, keep an eye on www.primalcarnage.com and the official Discord server for the latest news.

-The Primal Carnage Team






We are continuing to overhaul gamepad support as part of our work on the PlayStation revamp of PCE, and have started bringing some of those fixes and updates to the Steam side. This also means a rework of the controller layouts (with more presets and controller customization on the way!).

• Updated default control layouts for gamepads based on community feedback
  
• Fixed shoulder buttons on controller not properly swapping between tabs on server browser
  
• Left and right triggers no longer feel backwards when dual wielding weapons
  
• Fixed an issue where horizontal and vertical sensitivity sliders became swapped
  
• Set toggle run to be on by default when using a controller (first-time users)

NOTE:
If you encounter issues when using a controller please consider disabling Steam Input.

You can do this by simply right-clicking Primal Carnage: Extinction in your Steam library and selecting Properties > Controller then choosing Disable Steam Input from the dropdown list. PCE has native support for Xbox and PlayStation controllers, and should not require third party tools to use a gamepad with.

• Fundamental changes to how dinosaur attack hit detection is handled, should now be much more responsive and reliable than before.
  
  
• Fixed dinosaur Roar Refresh function not cancelling the bow's bleed status effect
  
• Roar Refresh reduces dinosaur dosage amount by 50% instead of fully removing dart status effects
  
• Updated some species class info in the menus
  
  
• Changed tranquillizer rifle to reinforce its role as a poison dart gun:
  
  • Damage displayed is perceptually instant, with the intent to give better feedback.
    
  • Hitting a strong point reduces the the damage dealt but not the dosage level.
    
  • Only ultra strong points (e.g. Pachy dome) reduce both dose and damage.
    
  • Each hit with a poison dart makes the next dart deal more damage (up to a point)
    
  • Extra damage is only dealt if darts hit within a short window of time, else it starts going down
    
  • Fully dosing a dinosaur will produce a UI sound effect and guarantee a kill on it.
    
  • Poisoned dinosaurs will die two seconds after receiving the killing dart.
  
  
• Tranquillizer pistol now does more classic energy sapping:
  
  • Losing all your stamina from tranqs makes a dinosaur enter the fully tranquillized state
    
  • Fully tranquillized dinosaurs cannot regenerate stamina for 3 seconds and move slower
    
  • Each consecutive tranq dart hit then adds 0.5 seconds to the duration (up to 4 hits)
    
  • When fully tranquillized state ends, dinosaur has 25% of their stamina restored.

Cryolophosaurus:
• Small increase to spit charge-up time as cryo
  
• Reduced direct hit damage for cryo acid from 80 to 60
  
• Sped up cryo acid puddle damage interval from 0.85 to 0.7
  
• Reduced damage of cryo acid puddle from 30 to 25
  
• Reduced "health" of cryo acid pool slightly so flamethrower ignites it quicker
  
• Charged spit projectiles now also explode on direct hitting a human
Dilophosaurus:
• Reduced dilo spit default damage from 30 to 10
  
• Reduced dilo spit explosion damage from 30 to 25
  
• Slowed the draining effect interval of dilo venom puddles
  
• Reduced venom puddle stamina drain per tick from 16 to 12
  
• Charged spit projectiles now also explode on direct hitting a human
  
• Dilo puddles now deal a tiny bit of damage (just 1 per tick) to help humans be aware of them.
  
• Made the radius at which dilo spit extinguishes flares be a little more forgiving.

• Increased audible radius of a few tyrant eating sounds
  
• Tyrants will now produce a threatening rumble when they are braced
  
  
• Added bracing ability for tyrants:
  
  
  • as tyrant, hold the "crouch" key for a moment to charge up extra armour by "bracing"
    
  • when they are braced, tyrants receive 80% less damage from all sources
    
  • bracing slowly consumes stamina, and you lose a small amount of stamina when hit
    
  • you can brace and sprint as a tyrant, but the stamina consumption will make it end sooner
    
  • you can initiate attacks while braced, but this will cancel the brace and remove the effect
    
  • you cannot regenerate stamina while bracing

Charge Changes:
• Pachy now automatically charges, similar to other Bruisers. No manual activation.
  
• Minor increase to pachy charge damage (38 min, 76 max)
  
• Pachy lets out a cry when it has reached charge speed
  
• Charging velocity is faster after roaring
  
• Knockback behaviour is now closer to Carno
  
• Limited charge hits to once per second
  
• Reduced stamina consumption for charge
  
• Fixed charge sometimes doing double hits
  
• Fixed charge being cancelled after jumping
Roar Ability Changes:
• Increased turn speed when roared a bit further for Pachy
  
• Slight reduction to Pachy midair (jump) turning speed
  
• Pachy primary attack is now 25% faster during roar period
  
• Faster turn speed for Pachy in general when charging, plus...
  
• Pachy now has boosted charge turning rate while roar ability is active
Other:
• Slightly lower jump height by default
  
• Increased speed while sliding for Pachy
  
• Increased minimum velocity required to slide
  
• Shorter timeout period after sliding before Pachy is allowed to slide again

• Adjustments to Flyer acceleration, increased velocity from diving
  
• Flyers now slow down quicker from sprint speed (stronger braking)
  
• Fixed a problem where Flyers were unable to land or take off in some cases
  
  
• Reduced minimum height required for Tupa divebomb from 316 to 300
  
• Increased max divebomb groundpound damage from 80 to 90
  
• Made sure ThrowRagdoll was set to True on the Tupa divebomb, along with a decent upkick
  
  
• Reduced minimum required grab height for Pteranodon
  
• Made grabbing less restrictive with a lower velocity requirement
  
• Reduced the slowdown when holding a grab victim as Pteranodon
  
• Fixed the Pteranodon grab animation not cancelling when shot, it now flaps angrily.
  
• Fixed an issue where Ptera was sometimes unable to let go of a grabbed human after being shot
  
• Fixed still being able to descend with your catch if you hold crouch before initiating a Ptera grab

General:
• Health pickups now work differently -16 HP on touch, with the rest given over 2.5 seconds
  
  
• If a human is damaged after grabbing a health pickup, health restoration ends
  
• Grabbing a second health kit does not give immediate HP, instead stacking on to the timer
  
  
• Humans now play their weapon equip animation before being able to shoot if dropped by a Ptera
  
• More accurate ragdoll effects from gunfire, with stronger impact force on bullets
  
• First implementation of new, more efficient dialog code
  
• Game now waits until current voice line has finished before trying to play a new one
Weapon Changes:
• Fixed a bugged timer that caused some weapons to have an artificial rate of fire cap
  
• Fixed sometimes being unable to swap from secondary to primary weapon while sprinting
  
• Fixed bug where weapons hit twice when playing on client hosted games
  
• Allowed weapon swap while jumping/falling
  
  
• Melee attacks are now less affected by armour (20% reduced damage instead of 40%)
  
  
• Machete now takes less time to do a fully charged swing
  
• "Charged up" machete swings now completely ignore regular armour
  
• Fixed machete still doing damage AFTER being pounced if user had been charging it up
  
• Added new sounds to machete charge attack animations, fixed no sound on regular machete attack
  
• Charged machete hits now deal 75% bonus damage (coupled with 25% crit, this can mean double damage)
  
  
• Re-enabled a small amount of procedural weapon model bob during movement
  
• Guns now slowly recenter to near their original aim height after being shot
  
• Increased kickback when firing certain guns
  
  
• Moderate recoil reduction on SMGs
  
• Minor spread reduction for M4
  
• Increased revolver crit damage to 40%
  
• Increased spread of burst rifle
  
• Reduced effective range of burst rifle slightly
  
• Desert Eagle now has 20% amount piercing damage
  
• Hatchets now have the ability to deal crits again
Scientist Weapon Updates:
• Tranquillizer Rifle is now the Poison Dart Rifle, with a focus on sustained damage
  
• Poison dart rifle does not drain stamina, instead applying a dosed status effect
  
• While under the influence of poison darts, each successive dart hit does more damage
  
• The poison status effect wears off quickly, so you must keep the pressure on to deal good damage
  
  
• Formalized the dartgun's name as Tranquillizer Pistol
  
• Tranq darts drain dino stamina until they are in a depleted state, with reduced movement speed
  
• During the fully tranquillized state, dinosaurs are unable to regenerate stamina
  
• Once tranq status has ended, dinosaurs immediately recover 25% of their stamina
  
• Reduced the tranq pistol instant hit damage from 10 to 5
  
• Tranq pistol now fires faster, with less recoil

• Post processing and lighting updates to a couple of maps
  
• Optimizations to several lens flares and particle effects
  
• Swapped the main menu and BasicTesting maps for new spooky versions
  
• Re-enabled spooky scary skeleton skins as default inventory items
  
  
• Community animation fixes:
  
  
  • Trapper : now has basic facial animation support
    
  • Trapper : fixed Colt / SMG select animation and added eye animations
    
  • Commando : fixed AR selection animation not looping seamlessly
    
  • Commando : fixed hand not grabbing the M4 properly in first person scoped anims
    
  • Assault Cannon : adjusted first person reload to see the bullet better
    
  • Pathfinder : updated machete "charge-up" animations
    
  • Cryo : fixed a stutter in its sprint animation
• Fixed cosmetics visible in cinematics
  
• Fixed lagoon carno skin and RGB netgun skin
  
• Consistency pass on a bunch of dinosaur skins
  
• Updates to a few character models
  
• Snow Pyro and Survivor Pyro now use the classic hybrid model (had a face transplant)

• Reduced auto-balance check time from 70 seconds to 45 seconds
  
• Change Class no longer has an *additional* countdown after having already killed you
  
• Possible fix for changing teams causing severe weirdness
  
  
• Reduced minimum Capture The Egg mode players required to 2
  
• Set stricter default class limits in general
  
• Re-enabled voting by default
  
  
• Added the GTTC maps to Freeroam map rotation
  
• Added more names to the credits
  
• Added more class hints
  
• Fixed a damage number display bug
  
• Fixed item descriptions sometimes appearing behind in-game store banner

October 2022 marks 10 years since the original Primal Carnage was officially released!



We here at Circle 5 have been stewards of the franchise for the last eight years. It's hard to believe we've been going this long - it's been quite a ride building Primal Carnage: Extinction into what it is today!



As a smaller indie team, we're incredibly proud of what we've been able to achieve. Nearly all of the current Primal Carnage developers are only able to work part-time, and you'd be able to count the live development crew on one hand since 2015... (we have a current team of five). Despite that, we have managed to pull off new game modes and even added new dinosaurs these last couple of years!



None of what we've done would have been possible without the support of our dedicated and incredibly creative community. We have worked hand in hand with fans, from the early years of Workshop right up to the present day, and continue to directly commission the best and brightest from the Primal Carnage community to help us create new content...



Players have become developers over time, the artists among you helping to design new character models, craft new animations, build new maps, imagine inventive skins, and draw up epic artwork.

Thankyou ALL for your support, we couldn't have done it without you!

Now, let's celebrate!







The party's starting in-store NOW! Yes we're running a retro store sale every couple of days during October! Dozens upon dozens of classic looks are returning with limited-time discounts.



Each store rotation has its own little theme, from featured classes to mercenary memories, with the autumnal collection being a through-line that reappears. Check out the sales schedule below:

1. Tues 4th Oct --- Autumnal Revival Sale, Part 1
   
   
2. Thurs 6th Oct --- Featured Class Sale --- (Flyers)
   
   
3. Sat 8th Oct --- Mercenary Memories Sale --- (Humans)
   
   
4. Mon 10th Oct --- Featured Class Sale --- (Bruisers)
   
   
5. Wed 12th Oct --- Autumnal Revival Sale, Part 2
   
   
6. Fri 14th Oct --- Featured Class Sale --- (Raptors)
   
   
7. Sun 16th Oct --- Featured Class Sale --- (Tyrants)
   
   
8. Tues 18th Oct --- Autumnal Revival Sale, Part 3
   
   
9. Wed 20th Oct --- Featured Class Sale --- (Spitters)
   
   
10. Fri 21st Oct --- Autumnal Revival Sale, Part 4
[/b]

Worried about missing featured items from the day before? Check the Specials tab!
All discounts will remain active until the Halloween update is live.



Additionally, we are now including a Paint Mixer Tool for applying dino skin changes when you buy a multi-pack of colours from the in-game store. Paint Mixers sold separately are now indefinitely discounted to $2.99. Look for more bundles and extra colours to pop up in future!





Keep an eye out for new additions to the Primal Carnage online store this month!

That's right, more merch is incoming! There are several new posters in the works, including a classic piece by veteran concept artist Trey Bishop...



These will appear over time as we near the franchise's 10th birthday, in addition to new shirts, mugs, stickers and more (including some of the runners-up in the recent merch design contest)!

But that's not all...

Receive 25% off your online order of posters, wearables or accessories by using the code Carnage10

*This special discount is limited to one use per customer and ends on November 4th!





The climax of our birthday celebrations is what you might call the "Halliversary" - our annual Halloween Horrors event starts around 0ctober 25th. That's barely four days before the launch date of the original Primal Carnage, which debuted just prior to Halloween 2012.

Expect a frighteningly good selection of horrific NEW looks, in addition to a sizable game update. Pyro is finally getting a new primary weapon this Halloween, and we have made significant improvements to dinosaur hit detection among other gameplay adjustments. Even more upgrades to core features will follow later with Update 3.0, though we can't give a date for that just yet.

Oh, and there will be freebies.

Certain codes may or may not be getting activated around Halloween, and we have a little box of goodies in the form of the 10th Anniversary Gift. That's a *personal* gift just for you. We hope you'll like it!





It's been a long road, but we are almost ready to officially announce the next phase for Primal Carnage on PlayStation platforms. The console side has been lingering in the dark ages for far too long, and we're working hard to make sure that it will have been worth the wait.

Right now our team is in the final stages of submitting a beta for certification on PS4, and with a little luck we will be revealing more details during our 10th anniversary celebrations this month.

Keep an eye on the official Discord and primalcarnage.com for more info!





Thanks again for being with us on this journey. We still have countless ideas for how to expand PCE and Primal Carnage in general, and hope you'll join us as we venture into the franchise's second decade.

Here's to many more years!
-The Primal Carnage Team





Special thanks to community artists TerexTheMenace, BBQ and ChunkoHunko for creating these anniversary celebration doodles!

Although there is still a while until our next major update to Primal Carnage: Extinction, we have some news about what's coming up, and a collection of classic content returning. Check it out...






Ssssserious savings can be found in-store for the month of September, with huge discounts on many classic items! We're focusing on the letter "S" as this month's theme, so of course there's a whole bunch of retro items returning for our favourite crocodile-snouted lizard.

We have half a dozen classic mutations for Spinosaurs, such as the sinister Synapsus and snappy Suchus, plus a collection of fan favourite skins for the big brute. It's not all about the sailback, though...





We've selected a large swathe of other skins and mutations to bring back! These range from the stompy Salmon Acro to the soaring Sand Swooper Ptera, with a sprinkling of Scientist items to top things off. In total, that's almost 50 classic items returning!





Meltdown is cooling off as of today. The old summer items are departing in order to make way for the September Spectacular. It's not over quite yet though! We gotta have an encore...



For the next few weeks, the featured items from Meltdown 2022 will still be hanging out in-store. If you didn't get around to picking up that one skin or mutation which caught your eye this summer, this is a last chance to grab it before they rotate out at the end of the month.





In case you missed it, the winners of the recent Merch Design Contest are now available on our shop! There are new shirts, posters and mugs emblazoned with the winning designs, with more on the way.




It still hasn't quite sunk in for us honestly, but the Primal Carnage franchise is nearly 10 years old!
As we get into October, we'll be ramping up celebrations to mark this momentous occasion...



Keep an eye out for a whole bunch of mega-sales, in addition to fresh new posters and more on the merch store. And this is all leading up to our annual Halloween Horrors festivities (coincidentally, the original Primal Carnage launched on Halloween...) which will be bigger than ever this year!



There has been a massive amount of incredibly creative and mildly terrifying submissions on Workshop, and we can't wait to bring this stuff in-game. There's a lot more than spooky skins coming up though!





With development being split between the refreshed console version and PC right now, we have to be careful about what's safe to port back and forth. This is a very busy time for us and will only get crazier as we enter a new beta period for the console side, but we're doing our best to continue supporting the Steam version.

Our hope is to have 3.0 out by the end of this year, with any luck sooner rather than later. This will be a massive update, featuring overhauls to fundamental systems such as dinosaur hit detection and movement. We've been spending a lot of time on polishing things and fixing numerous bugs for the console relaunch. Those changes will be included in the Steam version with the 3.0 update.



Open Testing is underway, verifying that issues such as being unable to pounce are fixed, checking overhauls to flight and a rework of the Pachy class currently (not to mention Pyro's new toy).

In fact the update may be so massive, that it may not come all at once. Maybe we'll have a 2.9.9 before we get to the truly massive overhauls. Either way, we'll have some serious improvements to the core experience in time for the franchise anniversary this October.




We hope you'll join us in celebrating 10 years of dinosaur themed mayhem!
-The Primal Carnage Team

A new game update is available for Primal Carnage: Extinction on Steam.
This update is the final phase of Meltdown 2022!

We conclude this summer's cavalcade of hot new looks with the first wave of Ultimate human skins and August's store rotation. Scroll on down for the highlights from Part 3, and view all of the new mutations, taunts, skins and more added over the course of the Meltdown event on Trello.



Today's update brings the final set of Metldown items to the in-game store, adding on to the collections from Parts 1 & 2. Check them out below...


Pyro "Fake" Thumbs Up Taunt



Pachy Dance Taunt



Pachy Yawn Taunt





A third bumper pack of dinosaur skins is now available!



Big Blazing Bundle 03 contains 8 sizzling new looks for several dinosaur classes at a bulk discount.





Reward up to 24 other players with special summer items by opening the Summer Sunset Gift in a server!



The gift giver receives the Black Hole Royal Dilo skin for their generosity...







We have a selection of new free items dropping from today, obtainable simply by playing the game...


The first wave of Ultimate skins for humans has arrived.
With lava seemingly flowing through their veins, these mercs are really feeling the burn!



Each of the ultimate skins features unique textures and custom arm materials, and this is just the first collection. Similar to Ultimate dinosaur skins, we will be following up with Kilowatt humans later this year, with Cold Fusion and Thalassic following later on.

(Ultimate skins are obtainable either as ultra rare drops or by crafting 25 Legendary skins together)


In addition to the newly introduced Ultimate human skins, there are a bunch of other free items added today. The DENTATIS Dilophosaurus mutation gives the dinosaur larger rounded crests and much more noticeable spiky teeth, and is among the new free drops...



Tortoisehell Feathered Acro and Nile Monitor Pachycephalosaurus head up the free skins today...



The Novaraptor Threaten Taunt is a new Uncommon drop...



3 new avatars / sprays are now dropping, including Annoyed Acro, Spino Rage and Primal Surprise..




Finally, several new weapon skins have also been added, such as the colour-changing RGB Netgun and the intricate Circuitry Burst Rifle.






As we've mentioned before, our programmers are currently occupied preparing for the relaunch of Primal on PlayStation. For that reason, most changes to the PC side will be fairly minor for now...

• Heavy hit reactions for dinosaurs now play less often
  
• Tyrants now only play heavy hit reactions if instant hit damage received is 300 or more
  
  
• Added content for Meltdown Part 3
  
• Legendary human skins can now be crafted into Ultimate human skins
  
  
• Fixed laser sight alignment on red devil assault cannon
  
• Fixed glow map issue with Frost Fire Nova and Nightfall Oviraptor skins
  
• Fixed mismatched subsurface skin colour between head and body on a couple of Tyrannosaur skins
  
• Updated materials / textures for hornet scientist, hornet sniper rifle & catsuit scientist
  
• Tweaked 3rd person trapper sprint animation when using dual pistols
  
• Tweaked the Novaraptor sprint animation
  
  
• Various other texture and material updates
  
• Optimizations to shadowmaps

A new game update is available for Primal Carnage: Extinction on Steam!



This update introduces the second wave of Meltdown 2022 items, with dozens of new customizations available on the in-game store and as free drops. We have some other minor improvements here and there, but new looks are the star of the show.

Selected from the many amazing Steam Workshop submissions made by the Primal Carnage community, you can view all of the newest content on our freshly updated Special Event Trello...


Some of the highlights:


Today's update brings a fresh set of items to the Extinction Store!



There are 8 new dinosaur model mutations newly added this time round, ranging from the athletic Varanus Cerato to the knobbly Narmadensis Acro and hulking Frustrum Rex!



Take to the skies as Prodigis Tupa, which has a set of "feathers" (?!) on either side of its head, or grow some teeth with the oddly beaked Trimicrodon Ptera! All of these and more available now if you scroll down in-store...



Apart from all of the new taunts hitting the in-game store today, there are also three fresh new taunts in this rotation, with a real banger for the Pyro!


Sorry, punk rocker Pyro outfit sold separately.



It can backflip?! Where did it learn to backflip..?!



Want a great deal? A second bumper pack of dinosaur skins is available in-store today!



Big Blazing Bundle 02 is a pack that contains 8 scorching new looks for $8.99, including vivid skins for Bruisers and Tyrants, such as the bold Furore Carno and smouldering Wildfire Rex.

With so much new stuff, don't forget that all of the items that were added as part of Meltdown Part 1 and Summer Warmup are also still available on the store until the event is over!







Technically falls under this heading. We have another collaboration with community member and "honorary developer" Mr. Troodon. At long last, a custom model for feathered Novaraptors...



Featuring new 4K base textures and additional sculpted feather structures, this model and its overhauled texture set is now used by default when a feathered Nova skin is selected.



The update to feathered Novaraptors was designed with maximum compatibility in mind. To that end, the custom feathered model can be overridden by equipping a mutation, and there is a new default mutation, "Novaraptor Innatus," if you wish to apply the classic model when using a feathered skin.

Alignment with certain cosmetic attachments such as collars may not be 100% at the moment, so there might be some clipping or incorrect rotation when using attachments with the new feathered Nova model (depends on the item). We'll be doing a pass in a future update on cosmetic alignment in general, to fix some of the annoying offsets on a bunch of different characters.





We have a bunch of new free skins and extras dropping as of this update, obtainable simply by playing the game. Among the rarer items are new hats, aqua shackles and even two free mutations...


Above: Macronyx Oviraptor & Gracilus Pachy


In addition to character cosmetics, there are half a dozen new sprays now available and (nearly) all of the in-game sprays are now obtainable for use as player avatars. Spicy Rex seen below on the right also comes in Legendary flavour, with a fiery animated version!






We are currently focusing the majority of our time preparing for the relaunch of Primal on PlayStation, so most changes on the PC side will be fairly minor for now. The change log for today's patch is below:

• Added a custom model for feathered Novaraptor skins
  
• Added a new Novaraptor mutation to the default inventory, "Novaraptor Innatus"
  
• Fixed the Royal Acro eyes not glowing when equipping a collar
  
• Various other minor model fixes and compatibility updates
  
• Tweaked / fixed a number of small skin issues
  
• WIP optimizations to water shaders (may result in them appearing more wobbly than usual)

Meltdown continues with its third and final phase in the coming weeks. Keep an eye out for more mega deals and hot new looks headed your way soon...



Stay hydrated and have a great summer!
-The Primal Carnage Team



Join our official Discord...

Recently we opened the Official Primal Carnage Store, and simultaneously kicked off a community art contest focused on designs that could work well on merch such as T-shirts, mugs, posters, etc.

Today we're unveiling the winners of the art contest, but first let's visit the gallery to peruse all of the competition entries we received...



There was a nice variety of submissions, from full colour posters to sticker-style cutouts, in a whole bunch of different styles. As there was no specific theme other than something which might work well as merch, there's a wide range of subjects in the artwork too.



It was difficult narrowing down the selection, keeping in mind both the requirements of assets that would be physically printed and considering the merits of each piece on its own terms. Here are a few that we really liked but didn't quite make the top spots...


"Airbase Poster" by ChunkoHunko


"Lightning Spino" by DiNoKiDz1441


"Water Spino" by Shockal


"Don't Fall Behind!" by Dead but delicious


"Summer Dilophosaurus" by Stardust Blur


"Fiery Novaraptor" by FeralViolet


"Serious Trapper" by Bad Plague


Some of these designs may yet become the basis of official merch in future, if we find time to work through some tweaks with their creators.




After much deliberation, we came up with the top three below. The following designs will appear on official merchandise in the Primal Carnage Store in future!





This delightful piece made us smile, it'll be an excellent sticker. We love the colours and the art style in general (plus we're a sucker for puns). The expression on the cartoon Dilophosaur's face is just priceless.







The in-joke that will just never die, we couldn't say no to a celebration of Primal Cornage - the world's greatest typo turned breakfast cereal. This is a great re-interpretation of the boxes that can be found as easter eggs in-game, with a nicely retro feeling vintage poster aesthetic.







Taking things to the next level, we have the first place design. The lighting and overall execution of this piece are top notch, with an ominous background glow and excellent use of masking to create a border that gives an impression of liquid. The vibe is a little darker than most of the other pieces and alludes to the concept of the dinosaurs being unnatural recreations of science.

It's going to make an epic T-shirt.





The three winning community artists will be receiving copies of their designs on products of their choosing, along with the other prizes mentioned in the Art Contest Announcement. We'll be reaching out via Discord to discuss the details soon.




Thankyou to everyone who participated in the contest, it was lots of fun looking through all the artwork!

Even if you lost out, as mentioned above, there's still a chance some of those outside of the top three may yet be added to the official merchandise collection in future. We had a surplus of awesome entries honestly!

Looking ahead, we're definitely hoping to run more contests in future :)
If you want to get involved, be sure to join the official Discord server...

A new update is now available for Primal Carnage: Extinction on Steam.
Today is the start of our annual MELTDOWN EVENT!



As has been mentioned in many places by now, development time is mostly focused on rejuvenating the PlayStation side of things currently. This means that we have a wonderful collection of new cosmetics arriving this summer, but we won't be making any major changes to gameplay for now. To view the minor fixes and tweaks included in today's update, you can scroll down to the patch notes at the end.


Now, on to the fun stuff!


SUMMER MELTDOWN is a firestorm of sizzling new skins, taunts and more for your dinosaurs and mercenaries, most of them selected from some of the best community creations on Steam Workshop...



Meltdown is actually a multi-stage event, with parts 2 and 3 following later this summer. So keep an eye out for news on when the next patch of items is released! The summer selections will be leaving when the event concludes this August.

Grab 'em while they're hot...




Today's featured rotation brings in 12 brand new model mutations for dinosaurs, with some radical transformations among them. Each is bundled with a skin of their own, and a few are pretty wild!



From the terrible tusks of the Kapros Acro, to the exotic Tropicus Oviraptor, and majestic Superios Rex... we have a whole range of different transformations great and small.






The Royal Acro premium skin collection is here! With a much more armoured appearance, enhanced dorsal spines and reinforced skull - it gives a properly "Primal" look to our stomping giant.



This new model boasts unique 4K base textures that add extra layers of detail, scales and osteoderms for a truly menacing feel. The sculpt was created by talented community member MrTroodon (who also made our Pachy and Cerato). Variant skin designs were executed by the wonderfully inventive artists ChunkoHunko and XSEIDET.



The initial Royal Acro set has four variants - Arid, Blazing, Blueblood and Forest, which can either be bought separately, or in a 4-pack for a great discount if you wanna have them all!




Here to rain on your parade, Mister Rainbow has arrived in-store. Quite a colourful character, this multi-tone tipped suit is surely the height of fashion.



A cuddly new backpack item is the Plush Rex, whose huge eyes are either totally adorable or windows into insanity. Bold red and with a permanent smile, this sinister or sweet attachment is now in-store!


Each phase of Meltdown will introduce a new BIG BLAZING BUNDLE to the store!



These jumbo skin packs contain 8 sizzling new dinosaur skins for you to enjoy. Parts two and three of this trilogy of awesomeness will be arriving with the next two Meltdown patches this summer!


Four fresh taunts are available in-store today.
That's two for Acro, one for Cerato, and one for Pachy...

Acro Hiss Taunt



Acro Threaten Taunt



Pachy Alert Taunt



Cerato Slow Clap Taunt



These community animations really do just keep getting better and better.
We'll be adding more new taunts (including some for humans!) as Meltdown continues this summer!





Open up the 2022 Meltdown Gift to reward up to 24 other players on a server with special summer items! Check out some of them below:



Upon opening the 2022 Meltdown Gift, the gift giver receives the INNATUS Rex mutation as a reward for their generosity!







A handful of new free drops are entering the drop pool, including the DILATATUM Carno mutation and some fresh sprays to use. We'll be adding more free items over the course of Meltdown, and unlike the store items they will be sticking around for good!





MORE THAN 150 classic summer items are returning from previous years, many with over 60% OFF! From fan favourites such as Suchus Acro, to the vibrantly in-season Human Beachwear collection, we've got everything under the sun today.



AND, in addition to the all-new Meltdown 2022 gift, every classic Summer Gift is back as well! With deep discounts on boxes stretching all the way back to 2016, now's a great time to share the summer fun!




Get ready to go nuts colourizing your carnivores...
You can pick up paint for pennies, with all 32 existing paint colours being ~60% off during Meltdown!

Paint Mixer Tools are now also HALF PRICE!
Keep an eye out for more mega deals during Meltdown!



Here is the full list of changes included with today's game update...

• Added a new bite attack animation for Acrocanthosaurus
  
• Increased detection radius of Pteranodon grab attack
  
• Fixed the Tupa dive cancel animation not showing for other players
  
• Adjusted subsurface scattering for Tyrannosaurus skins
  
• Fixed default dinosaur eye intensity so that it's at 50% without any colourization
  
• Fixed weirdness with eye colour settings when entering and existing the Colourizer menu
  
• Stopped the Cerato doing that sudden snap animation in the customization screen
  
• Added a link to the official merchandise collection on the in-game store

The Meltdown Event will last well into August, with two more content patches full of hot new mutations, skins, taunts, etc. dropping over the next month or so. For a full list of all Meltdown items you can check our Special Event Items Trello page, which will be updated as the event continues.

We hope everyone has a great summer!

-The Primal Carnage Team



Join the official Discord for all things Primal Carnage...

A new update has been released for the Extinction Editor (SDK) toolkit!

If you are making content such as skins or maps for Primal Carnage: Extinction, please update to the latest version of the SDK to use the most up to date shaders and newest features.

Interested in creating your own Primal content but don't know where to start? First, you'll need to download the Extinction Editor (SDK) from the Software section of your Steam library.

The unofficial SDK Creators Discord can help you get going.

If you're just starting out. "skin creation for dummies" may be useful...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMDvE8dKaBM



The latest release takes the development kit up to around ~40GB in size, so make sure you have room prior to installing. There have been many changes to game content and features, here are some of the major updates...




This version of the SDK includes the most recent master shader updates for characters, most notably support for colour shifting in dinosaurs and changes to how subsurface scattering is handled on skin.

Make sure when creating a new skin that your material instance is based off either the default skin for that class or the most recent skin for that class. Dinosaurs require additional masks to be specified now, to allow for the eye to be excluded from regular coloration in certain cases (e.g. eye glows).


Material options under the category THOU SHALT NOT TOUCH or DO NOT TOUCH are exactly that - things you should NOT touch. These options are usually modified during gameplay for things like collar eye glows, being on fire, etc. You should never need to adjust these.



Parameters that influence dinosaur skin colour in the Colourizer menu are also located under this section. You can try manipulating these to see how they affect things, but NEVER save the changes, as they will break the skin when Colourizing. There are also a couple of work in progress features that have been added to the master dinosaur shader which are not quite ready for use, and may never be included in the game as they are experimental. Again, these are in the forbidden section, so you should never need to worry about them.





There are a bunch of new and updated models in the Environment folders. Several assets have received material updates with higher resolution textures and parallax occlusion mapping. A handful of damage decals that feature this effect can be found in the DEC_Effects area, they create the illusion of depth when projected on surfaces. See the before and after below for an example, where additional cracks and stones are layered on top to make the ground feel more three dimensional...



This effect is rather expensive so don't use too many of these. Set your decal properties to project only on terrain so that heavy static meshes aren't receiving the effect.

"Fake" like shafts are another new effect now placed in several areas. These often use the same volumetric meshes that are under other light sources such as lamp posts. Unlike regular light cones, these have options for angle-based fading so that they softly blend out when viewed from certain angles in addition to distance-based opacity.



An example of this effect mesh being used is the Docks garage tunnel, where dynamic light shafts have been replaced by the new "fake" version for better performance (and to stop dinosaur eyes turning into laser beams when standing below the fan).

There are also additional shadow decals available, including the fan shadow in that tunnel, which is now a projected texture.

The water shaders are currently in the process of being tweaked, you may have noticed new normal mapping and foam effects on the Docks ocean. We may need to adjust things further as additional optimizations are put in place for PS4.






Over 12 maps have had major optimization passes in preparation for being ported to PlayStation platforms, with more planned in future. Part of this process has involved changing or in some cases removing various assets, or transferring them to different folders.

Please check existing maps for examples of best practices when creating your own environments. For example - the large shipping containers on Docks now have different meshes for each colour instead of relying on a material swap on one model. This allows for the model to render at lower detail with simpler shading when far away, while still having individual variation between crates and high resolution up close. Try not to override materials of objects placed in the map if you can help it, since there is usually already a model that exists with the material pre-applied to it.



Foliage has also had major performance improvements that are mainly facilitated by the use of Level of Detail (LOD) models. Almost every plant now swaps from its interactive version that blows in the wind to a static LOD version at distance, and then to an even simpler LOD model when very far away. The lighting setup in the foliage shader now uses a simpler approximation of light scatter and does not support detail normal maps anymore (they were so small as to not be noticeable in most cases).

Almost all grass now uses a separate Grass Master Shader that is even more simplified than the master foliage shader, with grass models themselves having up to four LOD models to improve performance when used in large numbers. It is still one of the most costly things you can fill a map with though, so be sure to use the actual Foliage tool when placing grass to at least gain some additional performance benefits.

Although the maps should run smoother than before, please be aware that editing uncooked content in an SDK does require a much higher performance level than running the regular game. If you want to do mapmaking, ensure your system is up to the task by having at least 8 GB of graphics memory and a 3GHz+ CPU.





All user-created items that have been marked as officially accepted for Primal Carnage: Extinction through the game's Steam Workshop now have the possibility to appear on PlayStation platforms. Anything accepted up to 6th June 2022 will automatically be eligible for porting to console, as they are already a part of the game and property of Circle 5 Studios.

The only difference between Steam item sales and PlayStation item sales is the revenue split. Item sales that occur on PlayStation platforms do not award royalties to the community item creators, as the transaction is being made via PlayStation Network, not Steam.

Nothing will change with item sales made on the Steam platform. User-created items sold through the Primal Carnage: Extinction in-game store on Steam will continue to provide the standard 25% royalty fee when they are accepted for sale on the PC game. Creators will simply not receive any *additional* revenue if the item is also sold on PlayStation platforms.

If you wish to not have your items appear on PlayStation, there is a grace period for items that have not yet been accepted to the game which will last until 22nd June 2022.

Any and all items on the Primal Carnage: Extinction Steam Workshop that are accepted for the PC game from June 22nd 2022 may appear on PlayStation platforms as free or paid in-game DLC items with revenue share from Steam sales only. If you do not agree to these terms you must remove your content from Steam Workshop before 22nd June 2022 or it will automatically become eligible for porting to PlayStation upon acceptance to Primal Carnage: Extinction on Steam.



We will be running themed events for Halloween and Winter as usual this year! If you want to take part by creating items based on those themes, please submit your content to Steam Workshop before the following dates to have a chance at being included...

Deadline: July 29th 2022

Deadline: August 26th 2022

There are tags for Halloween and Winter when uploading to Workshop which will help your entries stand out properly. If you don't see them, a moderator can apply the tags after the item(s) are uploaded. Putting the words "Summer" or "Winter" in your workshop item name can also be useful.



You don't need an SDK or modelling skills to enter this!
If you're artistically minded, why not get involved in our latest art contest...?



We're looking for cool new designs for use on Primal Carnage merch, now that our official store is open.
For full contest details (including some sweet prizes!) look HERE.

Join us on Discord to get involved!