“Age of Empires with dinosaurs,” as the developers of Dinolords recently told me in a cramped booth at Gamescom, is a flattering description for their upcoming real-time strategy game England vs. Vikingsaurus. But it’s also not particularly accurate. From what I’ve seen of the game, Dinolords is more about the lords than the dinos, and it has as much in common with Diablo-style ARPGs as it does with classic strategy. And that distinction might elevate it above novelty status.
Technically, you’re always just controlling the one noble guy tasked with defending the kingdom after those clever Danes fished some living dinosaurs out of the Greenland ice fields. You push him around, use abilities from his little ARPG hotbar, and, most importantly, you only ever see the world through the isometric camera permanently trained on his skull. You still command the construction of buildings and ramparts and give orders to assembled units of troops to defend against the vicious horde – it still plays very much like an RTS in that respect – but your perspective never changes.
This might understandably annoy strategy veterans who have spent decades having full control of their top-down perspective. But when it comes time for battle, the genre mix creates something distinct, if more than a little hectic. By the time the Vikings come into view, they’re practically at the gates, and getting in on the act with sword and bow attacks yourself is just as important as bossing your underlings around.
To accommodate the narrower perspective and overall more hands-on approach to combat, commanding has been simplified in what appears to be a clever and intuitive way. To issue a specific order to multiple units, you need to hold down a specific key, hover over the desired soldiers, and then release; a sequence that can be completed in a snap and doesn’t require any additional menus. And while you shouldn’t expect grandiose, all-encompassing army command, there’s still scope for individual moments of tactical trickery.
More than once I’ve witnessed Northplay’s gameplay designer Kasra Tahmasebi send his lord over the enemy vanguard to attack the more dangerous dino cavalry in the rear. It wasn’t an obvious move, with a squad of infantry already stuck in the castle gates with swords, but one that took advantage of the lord’s increased strength and speed to deal with a larger threat. Take the time to steal your own dinosaur eggs (and build the requisite hatchery), and eventually you’ll be able to ride the beasts yourself. I haven’t witnessed this exact scenario, but it sounds like the extra agility that comes with riding a velociraptor lets you get around the hero camera’s lack of vision by scouting the edges of a battlefield more quickly.
Enemy raptors can also scale your city’s walls, eating archers in the process, while Danish T-Rexes seem to have been bred to destroy static defenses. In other words, you’re not here for laughs: each dino race presents its own tactical challenge that you’ll need to plan for and overcome in different ways, and while your lord is strong, he’s also not a Diablo-level god-killer, so you can ignore your more traditional RTS units.
If you ask me, all that fighting sounds like it’s too much for my poor brain, no matter how highborn it is. The city-building side of Dinolords looks downright tranquil by comparison, and is perhaps even a little more conventional: you’ll need to gather resources, construct buildings, and keep a citizenry happy. Dinolords, meet Manor Lords. Except you’re still traveling the world solely as your sole lord, so you’ll need to personally amass all that wood and stone to begin with. Eventually, you’ll recruit enough rednecks to automate things, but you can still lend a hand whenever you want—a feature I particularly like, considering how often I zoomed in on my lazy townspeople in Manor Lords to get them to move resources faster. In Dinolords, I’ll literally be able to do it myself, speeding up the transport of goods with my sprint ability, or helping to build a monastery if I feel it’s taking too long. I’m not a control freak, you understand. I’m just the ruler of the people.
Likewise, I find the RTS/ARPG hybrid of Dinolord’s combat more engaging than I normally would with a pure strategy game. If all of this were true, the genre wouldn’t exist, of course, but I personally have never been into games like Total War (or Age of Empires) because I like the feeling of direct action in games, and watching all the little men do the actual action seems like a helpful influence at best. Having my very own personal lord to send into battle might fill that gap.
Plus, having a personal stake in the prosperity of your fief still sounds like a good strategy fantasy to me, with or without the comedic sci-fi element. You might end up shooting an arrow made of wood you’ve collected from an arrow maker you’ve recruited to work in the workshop you’ve built using the materials you’ve collected, and honestly that’s as cool as any dinosaur. Except the Spinosaurus, of course.
For more latest news and previews about Gamescom 2024, check out our Gamescom 2024 hub.
