Developer Systemic Reaction has revealed that its dinosaur-hunting first-person shooter Second Extinction has been cancelled.
Second Extinction was released in early access almost three years ago. It showed a lot of promise from the get-go and got its own fan base relatively fast, especially Turok fans who have been eagerly awaiting for something along the lines of Turok.
Unfortunately, the team discovered “a few critical issues” and according to the small developer “lacked the resources necessary to hit our quality targets and exit Early Access and Game Preview.”
Thus the game will be removed from sale and their servers will be shut down sometime next year. At this moment, no official date for the removal from sale has been announced, but System Reaction has stated that players will be informed in advance.
“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.”
Systemic Reaction published a post on Steam as a final update.
Player Base
It will come as no surprise that the majority of the game fans and player base have negatively responded to the news. On Steam the game’s reviews have dropped to overwhelmingly Negative basically overnight.
A lot of these recent reviews are from the player base venting at their disappointment with the news and sharing their frustrations. Not just at the game, but it’s developer Systemic Reaction and parent company Avalanche Studios. Understandable especially since the studio has been sharing progress on a massive update that was to be added to the game and making the game leave Early Access.
And an update that has been fed to its player base for many months, that seemingly just vanished.
Things happen and not always the way it’s planned, but when things like this happen, it changes the perspective on the future. This update was to be the game’s full release and instead of another delay, the game seems to be dead in the water, and after more than a few people purchased the game.
This is never a good sign for an Early Access title, especially since there’s a trend going around where Early Access titles get abandoned, never reaching a full release.
Second Extinction Servers
Second Extinction does not have an offline mode, which means when the servers are shut down, the game is dead and will not be playable at all. Online-only mode for games that don’t necessarily require online only is another trend in the industry and when things like this happen, it’s sad and unfortunate.
Players have spent money purchasing the game and spent countless hours just to lose access to a game due to the fact that there is no offline mode.
As someone who has invested quite a bit of time in the game myself. First on Gamepass to see how it plays before purchasing it on Steam, this really is a disappointment.
The game got rather repetitive fast back when I last played it and I was actually very eager for the so-called full-release launch. It meant something new to do in the game, but that anticipation has been cut off now. Many other players have also been early awaiting this, to get their hands on some new content and new stuff to do.