Second Extinction
A Final Update on Second Extinction
We write to you today with a mix of emotions as we share important news about our future plans for the game. After thoughtful consideration and exploration of our best course of action, we have made the difficult decision to end active development of Second Extinction.
While Second Extinction is well-loved among our players and the gaming community, it regrettably did not achieve the success we hoped it would. Additionally, some unforeseen show-stopping issues prevented us from leaving Early Access and Game Preview.
As you may recall, we initially planned to launch the 1.0 version late last year, but the discovery of a few critical issues forced us to pull back close to the release. Unfortunately, it became clear that our small team lacked the resources necessary to hit our quality targets and exit Early Access and Game Preview, and the investment needed to do so was too large for us to bear. After evaluating our options and working during this year to find other potential solutions, this became the reality our team had to face.
Second Extinction will be removed from sale on storefronts but the game servers will remain active for the time being, allowing everyone who purchased Second Extinction to continue playing solo or with friends. We will eventually take the servers down later next year, but we’ll communicate this well in advance once we have more information.
As game developers, we always try to highlight our wins - but sometimes we also need to celebrate our failures. Although Second Extinction did not achieve the goals we aspired to, it remains a success for us on many levels. Our small team turned an innovative concept into a fast-paced, fun experience that is amazing when shared with friends. And when it's all said and done, our mission is to bring this kind of joy to players everywhere in creative, explosive ways. In addition, Second Extinction has been a major learning experience for us. We've come away with a list of things that worked incredibly well, and things we know to avoid for future projects. One thing is for certain - while Second Extinction may be coming to a close, our commitment to crafting memorable moments that capture the magic of gaming will never fade.
Although this isn’t the outcome any of us hoped for, we want to assure you that there are no layoffs associated with this decision. The passion, talent, and skill of the team who worked on Second Extinction is being put to good use on other projects across Avalanche Studios Group. We ask for your understanding and compassion towards the team members involved on the project who poured their hearts into this game as we move on to our next adventures.
Thank you for being a part of this journey, and for your unwavering support. We are eternally grateful to have had you by our side.
Thanks for the memories,
Systemic Reaction
Full Launch is now planned for 2023
A lot has happened since our last blog post. After announcing the delay, we went straight to work fixing the remaining issues and giving Second Extinction the last polish before sending it off at Full Launch. We’ve been making great progress, however the road there presented more hurdles than we initially thought.
While we were originally aiming for a November launch window, we need more time to iron out some particularly stubborn bugs. These bugs include some crash issues that we’ve been having difficulties reproducing, which increases the time it takes to fix them. We want to make sure to deliver a high quality game while retaining a healthy work environment for our small development team.
That is why we are now looking at a release date in 2023.
We understand the frustration that comes with the delay of a game’s launch date and the uncertainty of when it’ll actually be released and can confidently say: We relate.
While we don’t yet know when exactly the new release date will be, we’ll let you know as soon as we lock in this very special day! We are just as eager to launch Second Extinction as you are to play it.
Until then, we have many blog posts, teasers, and other bits lined up! Stay on the lookout for them as they’ll contain a lot of information about the finished game and how we made the decisions leading up to it.
Thank you for your patience while we made sure that Second Extinction will be an all-round success.
The Second Extinction Dev Team
Full Launch coming in November 2022
Full Launch is fast approaching and we can’t wait to show you everything we’ve been working on during the last year.
During our time in Early Access we have made tons of changes based on your feedback and we thank you for letting us know what you loved and how we could improve.
We are dedicated to bringing you the best possible Second Extinction experience, and our small team is working very hard to deliver the full version of the game. However we want to ensure they are doing this in a healthy and safe manner. That’s why we’ve decided to slightly push back the Full Launch date in order to give our team enough time to address these last obstacles before we launch Second Extinction.
Our efforts are focused on this and we’re aiming for a new release date in November.
Thank you so much for your patience while we work on making Second Extinction a complete and fun experience for everyone.
The Second Extinction Dev Team
The Music of Second Extinction
Today, we have something truly special for you.
We recovered footage of the orchestra sessions when the soundtrack of Second Extinction was being recorded and worked together with Zach Abramson, the composer, to put it together and give it some fine tuning!
The soundtrack is an integral part of a great game, accompanying the player on every step they take. When the efforts of many people culminate in a work of art like this, it is important to highlight the result.
That's why we're happy to show you this behind the scenes look and announce that the Second Extinction Soundtrack will be released along with the game at Full Launch!
We also sat down with Zach to ask him some questions about the inspirations behind the music of Second Extinction and its evolution throughout the development process!
You can read the full interview below.
We hope you enjoy it!
The Second Extinction Dev Team
Interview with Zach Abramson
What directions were you given as to how the soundtrack for Second Extinction should feel?
At the beginning of my work on the project, I was given a creative brief by Dominic Vega, the Audio Director. A creative brief is a document containing information about the tone, mood, story, and gameplay feel of the game. The first page of it simply said “a Rock n’ Roll Dinosaur Killer”. I was already on board with that idea, but then the second page said “Evil, mutant Dinosaurs have taken over the world and you have to fight to take the planet back!”. With that, I knew the game was going to be over-the-top, fun, intense and gutsy.
We knew from the start that we wanted to use an orchestra to convey a sense of scale and importance, because the game is about risking your life for the greater good and saving the world.
Even though the game is set in the future, it’s not about being sci-fi or futuristic, so we didn’t use synths and techy sounds like you hear in so many space adventures. Instead, we went for a more rusty and gritty feel.
Talking specifically about “Reclaim Earth”, can you tell us a bit about how you created it?
The starting point and base of it all was the orchestra. It’s important to note the function of this particular song: Often, Main Themes are used in the Main Menu whereas here, it comes up when you’ve selected an insertion point and it serves to get the player amped up for the mission.
We had a lot of different ideas on how to make it as effective as possible, but none of them stuck. Then, one day, when I was walking to work on a cold winter morning, I noticed how I was gritting my teeth and leaning against the icy wind, thinking “I just have to get through this” and I thought to myself “This is exactly what our Heroes feel like when they’re preparing for a mission”. At that moment, the melody formed in my head and I hummed it to myself until I arrived at the office.
How does composing the Main Theme of a game differ from the rest of the Soundtrack?
For the soundtrack you hear during a mission, I wanted to write music that underlines and supports gameplay without distracting from it. You already have so much going on, for example dialogue, gunshots and Dino roars, that you have to keep the music subtle so the player doesn’t feel overwhelmed.
A main theme is different: It’s supposed to be the center of attention, you can pull out all the stops to push the music into the foreground. You want to create a memorable moment for the players, preferably with a melody that they will hum to themselves when they think about the game.
In stark contrast to this stands the Extraction Theme, the music that plays when players call the extraction ship. That one is supposed to overwhelm you and make you feel like everything is about to go horribly wrong, so I’ve used big themes in combination with the intense music you hear on the planet’s surface to create a sense of dread and urgency.
What did you take inspiration from when composing the soundtrack for Second Extinction?
For the Earth’s surface portion, we needed a way to support the idea of Evil Mutant Dinosaurs. We asked ourselves “What can we do in the music to make the player feel the size and primal intensity of these creatures?“
Going backwards a step, I think that one interpretation of the portrayal of dinosaurs in media is as a metaphor for the fear of the primal power within ourselves- that lying beneath all the trappings of society, technology and modern life, there is a dark, powerful primal energy in us all.
Igor Stravinsky explored these same themes in his ballet The Rite of Spring, which caused a literal riot at its premiere when the audience witnessed the primal and primitivistic choreography. So it’s no wonder that John Williams incorporated some Stravinsky-esque writing in his score of Jurassic Park, Goldsmith did the same in Planet of the Apes, even Disney used The Rite of Spring during the dinosaur segment in Fantasia.
Following in those footsteps, I also drew a lot of inspiration from Stravinsky for the score for Second Extinction- rhythmically, harmonically, and also a focus on instrumentation. I wanted to use some low woodwind tones to support the idea of dinosaur roars. My good friend and studio partner had just purchased a bari sax, so we went in and recorded some crazy bari sax multiphonic screams, growls and pulses, and then put them into the computer and started messing with them to get the monstrous and mutated woodwind sounds used throughout the soundtrack.
You can hear one of them at the end of the “The Music of Second Extinction” video, check it out!
Can you tell us about any early ideas that you had for it that you had to scrap or that didn’t end up working out?
Creating a soundtrack, especially for a new IP, always starts with an “idea phase” where you go through many different approaches to see which one works. This process requires input from the whole team and a lot of trial and error.
For example, I wanted to use a trumpet with a Harmon Mute to create a distant and pinched sound, but my colleagues thought that made it sound too much like a Film Noir detective movie.
We also tried using more woodwinds, for example saxophones, in the space station menu. That didn’t end up working out, but you can still hear some of them in little melodic gestures.
How was it to work with Avalanche? Is working with a Game Development Studio different from, say, a Movie Studio?
I love working with Avalanche. So far, I’ve had the opportunity of working with the New York, Malmö and Stockholm offices and it’s been a great experience all around.
In general, creating music for a movie is like a sprint, whereas working in the Game Industry is more like a marathon, with many iterations and short bursts of creativity spread over its entire duration.
The other cool thing about working in Games is that it’s so remote work friendly. I work with studios from all over the world from my office in Brooklyn, New York, which gives me access to many amazing tools and contacts.
What was it like working together with the orchestra to record the Soundtrack?
It was a dream come true! My background is in orchestral writing but it’s not every day I get to work with a live orchestra. I also really enjoy collaborating with the orchestral team and hearing new perspectives. This is where working together with the amazing orchestrator, Ella Feingold, and a conductor who is interpreting my music really comes to fruition.
What do you think is the most important part of composing a good piece of music?
I can’t give a singular answer to that, so I will give you two part-answers:
On the technical side, it has to be a combination of a good idea and a good performance. People listen to sound, not ideas, so if an idea seems brilliant in your head, but you can’t do it justice in its execution, it won’t work.
In a more poetic sense: We hear a lot of music every day, on the radio, at work, on TV, and while playing video games. Most of it washes over us, but good music can move us. Emotionally, physically, viscerally. I want people to remember the music and to remember the experience of listening to it. The ultimate goal is for someone to internalize it and then externalize it again, be that by humming or singing it to themselves or by showing it to others. That is the kind of passion I want to invoke.
Second Extinction Full Launch Date Reveal
We are beyond excited to finally share this amazing news with you: Second Extinction is leaving Early Access on the 20th of October, 2022 across all platforms: Steam, Epic Games and XBox!
Here is a new trailer we prepared for you, with some hints for new upcoming features:
So save the date and Wishlist now!
Closed Beta Weekend - Sign up now!
What's been going on?
Long time no see! We’ve been mostly quiet during the past 8 months, which is something we would never do if it wasn’t necessary. Those of you who joined before the development break know us as a team who communicates a lot with our community and actively works to get feedback integrated into our game.
You were always a huge part of the development cycle to us and we’ve missed interacting with you on more in-depth levels about what you like, dislike, want, need, et cetera.
During the break and following it up until now, there were so many moving parts that we just couldn’t keep you in the loop, as much as we wanted to.
We’ve heard a lot of you express your frustration about bugs that have been in the game for a long time (looking at you Xbox players, we haven’t forgotten!) and voicing your concern that we’ve abandoned the game or that we’re doing the bare minimum.
We’re here today to reassure you that’s not the case. Development is going more efficiently than ever, we love what we’re doing, and we think that you’re going to as well.
But enough talk about what we've been doing - we want to show you firsthand! We’ve put in countless hours and a ton of effort and are now finally ready to show off what we’ve been cooking up since last year!
Closed Beta
From August 12th until August 15th, 2022, we’re offering a select group of players a look at our current development state in a Closed Beta. All we ask for in return is that you fill out a questionnaire about your experience and your opinion afterwards.
Blogpost + Signup link here!
Sign up for the Closed Beta and with a little luck, you’ll be one of the chosen to set foot on the new map and experience the new features and improvements that we’ve worked so hard to get right!
Note that you have to be over 18 to sign up, as you’ll be signing a Non-Disclosure Agreement.
We’re extremely proud of what we have accomplished over the last couple of months and we can’t wait to hear what you think about it.
The feedback we gather from the Closed Beta will be used to give the game the last polish it needs before we release it at Full Launch. Unfortunately, we still can’t tell you when that will be, but you’ll find out well in advance, don’t worry!
Again, we want to thank you for your patience and your unending support. We see you all expressing your love for Second Extinction on our Social Media and our Discord server and it inspires us every day to work even harder and make it a game you don’t want to put down and will continue coming back to time and time again.
The Second Extinction Team
We're back!
As you all know, last December we entered a phase where we paused development of new features in order to focus on the direction Second Extinction is headed in as a game.
We can happily report that thanks to your feedback and the incredible efforts of our development team we now have a clear vision of what Second Extinction will look like at full release.
Our efforts and resources are now fully focused on finishing and polishing the content and fixes that will be available when we exit Early Access.
This means that from now until the full release of Second Extinction, there will not be any additional major content updates. You may see smaller patches for urgent fixes, but apart from that we’re saving all the awesome goodies for that special day!
There is a ton of content we’re working on and we can’t wait to show it to you!
While we’re not ready to share any details quite yet, we plan on posting some tidbits, teasers, and tasty treats during the time leading up to release on our social media channels, so keep an eye out!
As always, we’re looking forward to hearing your opinions, feedback, and comments! Thank you so much for your continued support of Second Extinction and our Team.
Without you, we wouldn’t be where we are today.
The Second Extinction Team
Supply Drop #7 - Patch Notes
Also, this Supply Drop contains fixes for audio issues that we know a lot of players had.
If you are still experiencing issues, please let us know via our Support Page or our Discord server!
Bug fixes
Menu, HUD, UI, etc.
Fixed issues where Newsletters would pop up every time the main menu was entered
Fixed issues where Newsletter arrows did not cycle through the News correctly
Performance
Fixed several audio issues/glitches that resulted in occasional crashes
Fixed a crash that happened when a player used the Armory’s Weapon Upgrade UI
⭐ = Changes made from community feedback and reports.
🔺 = Changes that worth special highlighting
Second Extinction - The Road ahead
The last 16 months have been quite the journey for Second Extinction. We released 7 Pre-Seasons, 6 Supply drops with additional fixes, added 3 new Dinosaurs, and introduced 2 new characters to our roster. We learnt so much about what you all love about the game and what you want to see added. It has been amazing to see over two million of you join the fight to Reclaim Earth - completing missions and contracts, contributing to the War Effort, and just having fun.
Being an Early Access title has helped us immensely – allowing us to listen, adjust, and evolve Second Extinction based on your feedback and input. As a result, we have fixed tons of bugs and added plenty of new features and tweaks. Thanks to the incredible Second Extinction community and your feedback, we found both big and small aspects to be improved upon.
While we’re excited about how far we’ve come in this last year with our small development team, we believe Second Extinction still has room for improvement and we need some time to evaluate exactly how to get there. This is why we will be using the next few months to take a step back and assess how to best unlock Second Extinction’s full potential while remaining the game we envisioned when we started: A fun, crazy, fast-paced co-op Dinosaur shooter with interesting characters and an amazing environment to play in.
This means that during the next couple of months we will not be releasing new pre-seasons or other major content drops while the team focuses on the work ahead.
Everything else remains the same. We’ll keep you updated on our progress through our usual channels and on the Developer Livestreams on Thursdays at 4PM CET. These are a great way of interacting with us and asking questions, so please do join them on Twitch or YouTube; we would love to talk to you more over there!
We will also organize some fun community events to keep you entertained, so keep an eye out for those!
If you have any content to share or questions for the team please feel free to reach out via our social channels. You can stay in touch with us and the rest of the community by joining our Discord Server and following us on Twitter, Twitch, and Facebook!
We are thankful for your ongoing support during this adventure that we’re all on together. We are incredibly proud of how far we’ve come and we have so much more in store for you that we can’t wait for you to get your hands on.
The Second Extinction Development Team
Supply Drop #6 - Patch Notes
Bug fixes
Menu, HUD, UI, etc.
- Before, the sensitivity options sometimes didn’t save properly. This is now fixed.
- The Cross-play info pop-up no longer overlaps with the War Effort update screen
- The “Reset to Default” option works properly in the Gamma settings menu
Gameworld
- Fixed several issues where Dinos were stuck in spawn caves. They are no longer shy!
Performance
- Fixed a crash that happened when a player filled in incorrect credentials in the Apex Connect account creation screen
Weapons and Equipment
- A dino ate the “Adrenaline Shot” perk for the pistol before the last Supply Drop. It is available again. Don’t ask how we got it back.
- Artillery Cannon works properly when equipping the perk "Direct Impact"
- Weapon perks that cause the weapons to do critical damage are now functional
⭐ = Changes made from community feedback and reports.
🔺 = Changes that worth special highlighting