If, like me, you’re a fan of cool dinosaurs in games then Deathground might have been on your radar over the last few weeks. Ever since I played the Turok series for the first time I’ve been hooked and Deathground sounded interesting enough as a concept to pull me back into another dino-themed game.
The idea behind Deathground is that you are completing a series of objectives around different areas of a dinosaur infested island. It could be that you are trying to gather a dinosaur egg for studying or reactivating the power for part of the facility all while evading dinosaurs that will try to eat your face off in between tasks.
When first jumping in, the world seemed very detailed and the dinosaur moments in the tutorial were thrilling and immersive — getting up close and personal with raptors in a vent, getting chased by a T-rex… All the good stuff you’d expect from a cool dinosaur game.
As soon as the tutorial was over it was straight into the game; Both a friend and I loaded in, picked our characters and unique equipment and were straight off to a medical facility to try and bring back a dinosaur egg.
With the tutorial fresh in our minds we were expecting a similar sort of engagement with tense hiding and surprises but unfortunately were met with the equivalent of the Payday drill ticking down as we had to stand in a number of bio scanners for a pretty long time, all while raptors slowly walked in and out of the room.
After the six scanners were complete we slowly made our way upstairs and then had to scan the dinosaurs that were roaming around the building. This was no easy feat as the dinosaurs are hyper-aggressive and chase you pretty much as soon as they see you, but need to stand still to be scanned. With all of this scanning business it had slowed down immensely and the tasks had become less fun and more of a slow slog as we trudged up and down the facility slowly completing objectives.
Even the dinosaurs chasing us wore down very quickly — the AI could only chase you so far and with vents and the respawn rooms being safe it was generally quite easy (on this level) to complete the rest of the tasks, grab our egg and be out the door nice and quick.
There’s not really any reward for completing the levels, no XP, progression or anything, just a time and rating. With only three playable levels, not including a safe testing room, our time exploring Deathground was pretty short. We did move onto the next level after the hospital, an underground geothermal plant, which was the polar opposite in terms of difficulty.
The plant was basically a giant room with a few vents and side rooms scattered throughout, and the entire mission had you running around this space while the same dinosaurs from the other two levels chased you relentlessly. With the numbers of dinosaurs being upped and a much more open space it was ridiculously difficult to try and complete the objectives and not get turned into meat paste.
One of the cool things about Deathground did happen because of the room though, which was the animation kill when you are downed, I was picked up by one of the raptors and thoroughly torn to shreds which was both surprising and cool as this hadn’t happened up until this point.
I think Deathground could benefit greatly from a bit of variety; The tasks are ridiculously long-winded and could do with a bit of fun added. Although the idea is that you’re meant to be avoiding dinosaurs as you do these tasks, a bit of interactability like a mini game while someone watches your back or something to break up the tedious sitting, waiting and switch flipping would be great.
Some of this is shown in the third level in the greenhouse with different pressures that need to be within a green zone all at the same time, but even that was still a drawn out experience as you wait for all four gauges to fill up as the dinosaurs maim you, resetting as you try and hide.
I think the term ‘extraction’ is also a bit skewed here, as most people compare this to the works of Escape From Tarkov or ARC Raiders but this is more akin to Left 4 Dead’s style of ‘objectives and escape’ than anything else.
I think with time, a bit more variation between tasks and a few more creatures hunting you, Deathground could shape up to be a truly enjoyable experience but as it is, it’s a bit too slow for my taste and loses that grit very early on.
Deathground is available now on PC
