The 2024 Saint Patricks Update for Primal Carnage: Extinction is now live on Steam!
Featuring not just new looks but a bunch of big gameplay changes, we're continuing to deploy what we can manage to the PC side while wrapping up the new PlayStation version. Much larger overhauls will be arriving with 3.0 later this year, but some will start trickling in over time as is the case with this update...
Gameplay Changes
The first of two updates this March brings many large and small gameplay adjustments. Check the full changelog at the bottom or read on for the highlights...
FLAMESAW OVERHAUL
On the human side, the flamesaw has seen the biggest changes (with more on the way)...
Balance-wise, flamethrower fuel consumption is lower and overpressure is now more damaging, but with bonus damage ending sooner. It's now less useful than ever to just go flailing around everywhere, but if a Pyro does go wild with the flamethrower it'll cover less of your screen...
All particle effects for the fire jet have been reworked to both be more optimized and have a tighter trail, their bold blue appearance at high pressure mimics the enhanced Survival flamesaw.
The chainsaw now has a refire delay to prevent spam-tapping. Previously, this was a method of killing dinos super quickly without worrying about the saw overheating. You can still get around overheat if you get a good rhythm going, but it's now much less exploitable.
Audio for the Flamesaw has been completely overhauled. It now uses the latest looping weapon system for optimization and less obvious repetition (other players can now also actually hear it properly). Firing the flamethrower at high or low pressure has different sounds, there is now a crackling effect when hitting an enemy with the fire jet, and its idle sound changes from a rattling chainsaw motor to the hiss of the flamethrower depending on which was last used.
SPIT POLISH
Both spitters have received a boost to their ranged attacks, partially due to fixing a bug where they would spawn an invisible damage puddle in midair when direct hitting a target. We still want direct hits to be a rewarding thing for them, just not through bugged means.
Cryo acid is a bit more damaging when landing on a human, while Dilo's charged spit now deals worthwhile damage instead of just blinding. The Cryo's spit was never meant to properly blind, so the duration of that effect has been greatly reduced until a new screen overlay is made that's less obscuring.
With regular spit now being more dangerous, we decided to deliver on a community request to make it more visible. It now has brighter, more solid particles. Additionally, both regular and charged spit effects now use lengthy trails that linger after impact to show where the spit came from.
TYRANT RESISTANCE
Previously a couple of factors led to situations where Tyrants could have a really bad time. Chief among these were dart weapons that could quickly drain them, and electrical stuns which cancelled any attacks.
With this update, stungun and zap traps no longer interrupt Tyrant animations that are in progress, meaning they can complete eating people, stomping, swiping etc. when hit. They cannot initiate a *new* attack when stunned, but they are not prevented from finishing one. Elsewhere, the stungun itself has a longer charge time to give Tyrants a chance to escape before getting hit again.
In a change that affects more than just Tyrants, dinosaur strongpoints now ignore darts completely. They deal no damage to armoured spots on a dino and no debuff is applied if shot in these spots. This means poison dart rifle and tranq pistol users will need to have better aim to gain an advantage, instead of just spam firing in a dino's general direction. This mostly helps the largest classes such as Tyrants, but is a net improvement for dinosaurs overall.
There's a number of other small gameplay tweaks in this update, including fan-requested changes like a max distance for assault rifle grenade bouncing (if they travel far enough, they'll just explode on impact). Check the full changelog further down to see more!
SAINT PATRICKS EVENT
Super green! We've got an emerald shower of new items in celebration of Saint Patrick's Day...
In addition to our featured store rotation, Lucky Drops are back! With a fresh batch of new free items added to the drop pool, we're running a double drop event weighted in their favor for the next 2 weeks!
You can check out all of the NEW looks on our Special Event Trello Board. We've also got plenty of classic St Patricks event items from yesteryear returning with discounts today, from a bold top hat wearable by both humans and dinos, to Mister Green himself!
CONTEST WINNERS NOW IN-GAME!
The lucky winners (and even some of the runners up!) in the emoji contest now have their creations officially added to the game! Select from six new avatars and sprays that are now dropping in-game, and pick up some of them as physical merch on the official web store!
We'll be back with more goodies at the end of the month when the Easter event arrives. Til then, feast your eyes on the full list of changes from our latest update...
Version 2.9.52 Changelog
Flamesaw Balance Changes:
increased overpressure damage
overpressure bonus damage ends quicker now
reduced flamethrower fuel consumption rate
shorter timeout period before overpressure starts recharging
added a refire delay to prevent spamming the chainsaw
Flamesaw Visual Changes:
added hot barrel glow to the flamethrower
barrel glow is blue when using upgraded flamesaw in Survival mode
on fire effect for dinos hit by upgraded flamesaw is also blue
updated flamethrower particle effect to be tighter and more optimized
flamethrower particles are now more intense at high pressure
Flamesaw Audio Overhaul:
upgraded flamesaw sounds across the board
converted flamesaw to use the new weapon audio system
flamethrower start sound is now different for low vs high pressure
added new flamethrower sounds for hitting flesh and water
fixed hearing a chainsaw revv when swapping to secondary weapon
fixed other players not hearing flamesaw sound effects properly
idle sound now changes based on whether chainsaw or flamethrower was used
Spit Modifications:
added more noticeable spit projectile trails to show trajectory of where they came from
direct spit hits no longer spawn a floating damage pool (known issue: a puddle particle effect still appears for direct hits, but this is a purely visual bug)
increased minimum Cryo acid direct hit damage from 60 to 64
increased Dilo charged spit max explosion damage from 25 to 35
increased Dilo charged spit explosion blind time from 5 to 6 secs
increased Cryo charged spit explosion splash damage to 55
reduced charged Cryo acid explosion blind time
greatly reduced uncharged non-explosive Cryo spit blind time
fixed weapon spit overlay not fading out if swapping weapons during the fade period
possible fix for rare cases where spit would perma-blind you until respawning
General Gameplay Changes:
Tranq and poison darts are now blocked by dinosaur strong points
If assault rifle grenades travel far enough, they will no longer bounce
Increased charge-up time for stungun from 0.75 secs to 1.6 secs
Flyers can now extinguish themselves by diving down if they are on fire
Tyrants no longer have attacks cancelled if they were mid-attack when hit by electricity
Fixed pyro explosion effects from dying to fall damage not showing
Added new custom "pyro bomb" explosion particles and sounds
Fixed projectile trails vanishing at the moment of impact in multiplayer
Increased timing window for Dirt Nap achievement to be a little more generous
Cosmetic Changes:
added new St Patricks Event content
added support for spit overlay to melee weapons
fixed certain weapon skins losing details when spat on
game-wide consistency pass across all weapon skins
fixed a couple of missing inventory icons
fixed Blazing Royal Acro having incorrect default colour tint
fixed specular intensity between head and body of Bluff Creek Rex
fixed Cyborg Pyro's wandering eyeball
Cyborg Scientist can now wear a cat on her head
STEAM SPRING SALE
The Steam Spring Sale is LIVE - enjoy great deals on PCE and its DLC until March 21st! Both the ultimate and deluxe collections are discounted in addition to the game itself, why not take a gander?
Our next major update will be towards the end of March, featuing more gameplay changes and quality of life fixes in addition to eggcellent new looks!
We've offered the official soundtrack DLC on Steam for a long time now, and with additional music currently being created we decided to make some improvements to the existing OST collection...
High Quality Audio
You can now download optional high res versions of the entire Primal Carnage Soundtrack Collection!
Simply opt into High Quality Audio Files inside the Music section of Steam's settings to receive versions of the OST in both uncompressed .WAV and .FLAC formats.
Each set of tracks is in a separate folder within the main install when you choose the high quality option, the default install location is: Steam / steamapps / music / Primal Carnage Soundtrack Collection
OST TLC
Special care has been taken to ensure everything has detailed and correct metadata with the latest update to the soundtrack DLC (in all formats - WAV, FLAC, MP3). On top of that, the tracklist is more appropriately sorted.
As a whole, the OST is split up into three "discs" now, that divide the collection's music based on which game it was recorded for (Primal Carnage / Extinction), with one side devoted to Bonus tracks.
Music Evolution
We're currently in the final couple months of finishing the new PlayStation version of PCE, which features (among many other things) brand new musical themes for a few dinosaur subclasses.
These fresh tracks will be brought to PCE on PC with the 3.0 update later this year, and you can look forward to them being included within the official OST collection as well!
Expanded Soundtrack Preview:
Here is a small taste of the new music currently being worked on, the eerie and dangerous "light" track for Pachycephalosaurus...
New to the franchise is composer Lyndon Kwan, who has been doing amazing work expanding on the foundation of the original soundtrack.
For the Pachy, new elements were introduced to Primal's musical palette, while retaining the mix of traditional and modern instruments that the classic tracks had. Both of the bruiser subclasses give the feeling of coiled rage, with danger lurking under the surface, ready to burst forth at a moment's notice.
We'll be sharing more previews of the expanded OST soon, so stay tuned...
Thanks for listening!
-The Primal Carnage Team
February Art Contest Winners
THE RESULTS ARE IN!
We had some great pieces of art submitted for the February Emoji Contest on Discord, and got a real kick out of browsing through them. As ever, we're continually impressed with the creativty of our community!
Congrats to everyone who took part, it was a hard time picking out the winners but here we go...
TOP PRIZES
Primal Shades by Jita23 -
Primal Classy by Bad Plague -
Primal Devious by DragonsAreCool -
In addition to being made official emojis, these 3 lucky creators will have their submissions appear as merch on the Official Primal Carnage Store!
We'll be contacting the top 3 creators soon about getting some personal physical copies!
RUNNERS UP
These three entries will appear as In-Game Sprays for now, but may become official merch at some point in the future...
Cryo Blep by ChunkoHunko -
PrimalWheeze by ChunkoHunko -
PrimalBeg by Bad Plague -
HONORABLE MENTIONS
Finally, not quite winners, but ones we thoroughly enjoyed!
PrimalSuspicious by Jita23 -
PrimalDespair by Domstrya -
PrimalFlex by BLSwiftThief -
PrimalGlare by QuiteBluish -
Thanks again to everyone who entered the contest. This is only the start of many Community Contests to come this year, keep an eye out for more soon!
The Valentines Update for Primal Carnage: Extinction is now live on Steam!
This is the first part of February's month-long special event, featuring smouldering good looks and various quality of life fixes. Read all the details below...
Balance Tweaks & Fixes
Our latest update includes various small fixes and a couple of balance tweaks suggested by the community. First and foremost, Flaregun shots have received a smaller detection radius for homing to targets, and to offset their easy to hit nature even further they now do ~50% less instant hit damage.
With the PlayStation beta in full swing and less time to work on the PC side lately, we've been tryng to resolve smaller quality of life issues in the moments we have to do Steam patches. Many annoying cosmetic issues have been addressed lately, improving compatibility of various skins and fixing visual oddities wherever possible.
Additionally, we've done some minor overhauls to the economy login process that should reduce login failures a tad, and fixed an issue with new players syncing their inventories.
Of course, the main highlight of today's update is our...
Special Valentines Event
Love is in the air! Our annual Valentines celebration is now live in-game, with a collection of lovely new looks and a taunt that is sure to melt your heart...
Outside of the store, we have a bunch of new free drops, including one simply adorable Carno...
Not to mention, the delightful Cupid's Bow...
This is only the first part of this month's special event, with even more interesting new looks arriving in Part 2, closer to the end of February!
Remember that you can check out all of the new goodness on our Special Event Trello Board in addition to previewing all store items in the game itself.
CLASSIC VALENTINES SALE
Absence makes the heart grow fonder they say, well it's been at least a year so we're also bringing back all of our classic Valentines items today!
Loads of lovely legacy skins, gifts, taunts and more have returned to the store, ALL with some delicious discounts. So if you've always wanted a stylish red tophat for your dino - now's your chance!
Version 2.9.50 Changelog:
reduced flaregun instant hit damage from 50 to 25
shrank the hit detection scale for flaregun projectile
improvements to economy login process -
resolved issues with new players syncing their inventory with the item server
fixed the game not waiting for you to be logged in when joining a friend's match via Steam
fixed missing pycnofibres on Snowstorm Ptera skin
fixed "feathers" showing on Onyx Freeze Rex skin's head
fixed Atroxiraptor skin not supporting head attachments
fixed mismatch between head and body lightness of Troianas Rex skin
fixed misaligned Classic Shotgun model in 3rd person
fixed Satchel cosmetic floating when used with Lifeguard or Wilderness Commando skins
fixed collar eye glow not being visible on Soul Collector Cerato - note that this does make its eyes less "soulless"
reverted BasicTesting and main menu to non-snowy versions
added new Valentines Event items
Community Roundup
Our first art contest for 2024 just ended, with the Emoji Design Competition now concluded. We'll be announcing the winners soon, and running many more community contests throughout this year on the Official Primal Carnage Discord!
If you're involved in making content for PCE, we recently revealed the deadlines for special events. Submit your skins, taunts, mutations and more before the deadline for an event to have a chance of them being officially added during this year's occasions!
Elsewhere, the overhauled PlayStation version has been in closed beta for a few months now and we still have plenty of places available to bring in more testers. Sign up at www.primalcarnage.com if you want to take part. The major 3.0 update for PC will contain all of the graphical and gameplay improvements from the new PlayStation version when it launches later this year.
Thanks for playing!
-The Primal Carnage Team
January Patch
Happy new year!
The winter event is still ongoing with Valentines coming up soon, but today we have a smaller patch with some fan-requested tweaks included...
Cosmetic attachments like hats can be difficult to line up accurately, especially when the same hat is used by characters that range from your average human to a full-on Ceratosaurus. This patch we've added new code functionality to set custom sockets per class for shared items, allowing for much better alignment.
Mutations still pose a challenge for this, but if you're using the default models (or something close to them) the hat offsets should now be generally pretty good, if not spot-on. The most noticeable improvements are for larger items like the valentines tophat, and we'll be fine tuning things further.
Aside from cosmetic tweaks, a few changes were made to the in-game text chat. We decided to disable drop notifications appearing in chat- they're not really that relevant and you still get the regular popup notice on your own screen when you receive a new item anyway. Finally, server admins and developers now have custom bold name colours in addition to the scoreboard icons to help identify who's who.
Patch 2.9.49 Chaneglog:
fixed Velvet Novaraptor skin posing as a feathered raptor
positional tweaks for a few dino items such as the raptor head cam
implemented support for unique socket locations for multi-team items
fixed cosmetic attachment offsets for items which are used by both dinos and humans
fixed the fishing hat position + rotation along with a bunch of other human cosmetics
added special colors for admin and dev names when typing in chat
stopped drop messages appearing on the in-game chat
Our economy programmer is looking into problems a couple players have had redeeming DLC lately, there will be some server-side improvements to hopefully address this soon.
If you are having problems connecting to the economy, please share your details in the bug reporting section of the official Discord so we can investigate.
Thanks for playing!
-The Primal Carnage Team
December Patch
Today's patch brings a few small fixes and tweaks after for our latest major update.
Patch 2.9.48 Changelog:
killing with the chainsaw should now grant health
fixed Trapper's net win taunt being unusable
fixed Renegade Pathfinder missing his facepaint
fixed offsets for new plushies on Scientist
fixed Tyto Feathered & Leaflitter Guanlong Dilo skins missing their feathery base textures
tweaked Craghide Cerato skin texture
fixed a couple of corrupted icons
fixed swapped steam icons for a couple skins
fixed missing item info for sleepy cerato avatar
Thanks for playing, and have a merry christmas!
Winter Sale!
The Steam Winter Sale is here, and Christmas means Carnage!
If you've yet to jump into the Carnage or have friends who may want to hunt humans and slay dinosaurs, now's a great time with the PCE 4-Pack also discounted this winter.
Our annual winter carnage event is running currently and is sure to leave you merry!
Happy Holidays!
-The Primal Carnage Team
WINTER UPDATE
The winter update for Primal Carnage: Extinction is now live on Steam! We have a collection of new winter looks and a game update that is sure to leave you feeling jolly...!
Game Changes
Humans: Rewarding Kills
Similar to how dinosaurs can regain health by killing humans, the mercenary team now receive boons for taking out dinos. Every kill a human makes will restore a chunk of their stamina, while melee kills will grant health to reward those who like to live dangerously.
Melee kills include standard knife attacks, heavy melee, and the machete. Health restoration on kill for humans behaves the same as dinosaurs, providing a moderate amount of HP regen over a short period of time. Stamina restoration is immediate.
Latest Rebalancing
To try and stop netgun Trappers having it too easy, the weapon's equip time has been significantly increased. This animation cannot be interrupted. Additionally, the collision radius for nets is now tighter, requiring a slightly higher degree of aiming skill.
Ceratosaurus has been adjusted to de-emphasize charging, dealing less impact damage from headbutting enemies. It now has more health to help it fulfill its role as a brawler, going from 1300 to 1600 HP.
To counteract this newfound tankiness, Cerato's other attacks have also been reigned in somewhat, with lower damage output overall. This combination of changes forces Cerato to engage more and really make the most of its roar ability, instead of relying purely on hit and run tactics.
Pachy's charge has received a bit of a buff with higher knockback, letting you send humans flying! And finally - now that fire damage over time is more unified, we have decided to reduce the amount of hurt burning deals. Fire DoT has been lowered from 20 to 16 each hit. This change applies to the flaregun, flameslammer and molotov. The flaregun also has a lower crit multiplier and less impact damage - though still a formidable weapon against smaller targets, it's not quite to the degree it was previously.
Latest Fixes
In our previous update, we allowed Tyrants to continue feeding on corpses if hit by light damage. Anything that would make them properly flinch, like an explosion, would stop them from eating. However, this didn't account for certain status effects. Like being on fire. We've now corrected for this and Tyrants will stop munching if they are burning.
A devious exploit that has been fixed was Bruisers dealing critical hits when charging, caused by using a special attack just before sprinting. This was worst with Cerato, who would apply tailswipe crit damage when ramming a human. We fixed this immediately when it was brought to our attention.
One weird edge case related to impact damage for raptor pounces was when the victim actually died on impact. Though rare, when this happened both the raptor and human player would be control locked, leaving raptors stuck in the mauling animation and the human unable to attack after respawning. This has been fixed as of today's update.
To see all the other minor fixes and tweaks, scroll down to the full changelog below...
Special Event:
Winter Carnage
Our special festive event brings an avalanche of coolnew looks to Primal Carnage: Extinction...
We have three mega skin packs with today's featured rotation, starting with Arctic Killers, Vol. 2...
There are NINE fluffy feathery looks for Acro, Nova and Dilo in the Frigid Feathered Pack...
For our mercenaries, we have the new Winter Weapon Pack 2, featuring 7 cold weather skins...
Not to mention new outfits for Trapper, Pathfinder and Pyro, plus new plushies!
This year's Winter Gift contains over THIRTY festive items, and the gift giver receives a special Alpha Pachy skin for their generosity!
Outside of the store, we have a bunch of new free seasonal drops including mutations, skins and some adorable sprays...
Finally, we have all of the legacy items returning from previous winter events with discounts that are sure to make you merry! Stretching back to 2015, there are literally hundreds of deals to be had.
Keep an eye out this holiday season for more amazing deals on Primal Carnage: Extinction, with big savings on both the game and its DLC packs coming just in time for Christmas!
From glorious glowing Ultimates to classic camouflage patterns, all of our Steam DLC will be part of the Steam Winter Sale this year.
Thankyou to our talented community for once again creating an incredible collection of Christmas cosmetics, and indeed for helping to implement them in the game itself!
The team really appreciates your support, and honestly sends a big thankyou to everyone who continues to play our game. We hope you all have a great holiday, and there's still more to look forward to as far as Primal Carnage is concerned!
We'll be back next year with more themed events leading into Spring, and the major 3.0 update launching not long after the refreshed PlayStation version in 2024! Until then...
A cloud streaming platform, Geforce NOW allows you to play games you already own anywhere you go by remote streaming them from Nvidia's servers. We've had a few very vocal people requesting this for quite a while, and Nvidia finally added support on their end this week.
Provided you have good wifi, it's a viable alternative for those who may have lower end PCs or laptops that cannot handle running the game at high settings.
Steam Deck Verified!
We're excited to have PCE playable in as many places as possible, and with our most recent review by Valve the game is now fully verified for Steam Deck, which makes us officially Great on Deck!
Steam Deck uses a custom graphics configuration for the best performance, and there have been many tweaks to controller support recently. We've added virtual keyboard text entry for item and nametag descriptions on Deck, improved general gamepad options, and the readability of menus & text when not close to the screen or using a handheld.
Thanks for playing!
-The Primal Carnage Team
12 Dinos of Christmas Sale!
This minor update primarily focuses on controller and UI tweaks, while also marking the start of a new series of store sales!
STORE EVENT:
THE 12 DINOS OF CHRISTMAS
Every day for the next 12 days, we will be spotlighting each of our dinosaurs in turn...
Hundreds of classic skins, mutations and more will be returning with MEGA discounts. The first species highlighted is our favourite hybrid hunter, Novaraptor. It seemed fitting since we're just wrapping up the Thanksgiving rotation (the turkey-related items will be here for another two days).
Deals will be focused on Oviraptor tomorrow, with new featured classes each day after that. So check back regularly for a whole bunch of new savings!
You can keep up with the latest flash sales and all things Primal Carnage on the Official Discord.
Our annual Winter Carnage event will begin not long after the 12 Dinos of Christmas Sale, bringing more quality of life improvements plus an avalanche of NEW seasonal goodies!
MERCH STORE SALE
Outside of the game we're running a special winter sale on the official web store, with 15% off all items from mugs to posters, hats, shirts, stickers and more!
The winter merch store sale ends on December 14th, order now if you're hoping to receive your items before Christmas!
Latest Game Changes
This is a smaller update and we're still quite busy running the PS4 beta, but there are some notable changes based on community feedback.
Charged spit globs are now easier to shoot out of the air, they have a larger collision radius and move slower, while only taking 2 damage to be destroyed. On the flipside, charged spit can now travel much further before detonating. This allows for longer range bombing as Cryo and Dilo.
Zap traps have a little more fine tuning, dealing less instant hit damage and less punishing DoT while having a longer arming time after being thrown. The flargeun has seen a minor tweak, reducing the ignition radius slightly. Finally, the Oviraptor now does a couple of points less damage when mauling. We'll be monitoring feedback for more balance tweaks in the upcoming winter update.
Patch Notes, Version 2.9.46
extended lifetime of charged spit, allowing it to travel further
made it easier to destroy charged spit globs by shooting them
increased arming time for zap traps to 1.5 seconds
reduced instant hit damage of zap traps from 50 to 30
reduced damage over time for zap traps from 20 to 18
further reduced zap trap hit radius
reduced flaregun damage radius
reduced Oviraptor maul damage from 42 to 40
added subtle motion trail effect to Rex tailswipe
Steam Deck: fixed not showing controller icons by default when on
Steam Deck: added virtual keyboard support for entering item names & descriptions
Steam Deck: improved controller support
upgraded to a newer version of our open source controller library for better compatibility
increased size of inventory icons, text and button prompts
added consistent button prompts to all Store and Customization screens
fixed being unable to select the Tools menu category when using a controller
rearranged a few button icons and fixed overlapping issues in some menus
fixed incorrect button prompts in some areas
made the Store Help info a large dedicated popup so that it can be read better
item descriptions now reposition themselves better to avoid going offscreen
updated all legacy gift descriptions to show full contents
updated descriptions for crate and key items, as they are non-functional
removed the "Show ID Card" text on main menu, is now a simple icon hint beside your nameplate
improved head and body blending on Ashland Rex skin
