Extinction
Ridiculously big troll heads will roll
The pick-up-and-playability of Extinction— an ogre-bothering fantasy action game from the studio behind Divekick and season two of Killer Instinct— is undeniable. In under five minutes I had rescued two dozen citizens, obliterated as many mobs, and was scampering up the back of a 150-foot tall jerk, ready to administer a fatal blow. The point of Extinction is not to save the world, but to save as many people as you can while ogres and more are bashing it to bits. Prioritizing action is important—do you deal with the ogre destroying the city to give you more time for the civilians, or do you go civilians first to get them out of danger? Do you save the nearby person who isn’t being attacked, or the one who is further away, but being punched by mobs?
Once you’ve made that decision, it’s all about the fight, working out the timings for pressing X (I was on an Xbox pad connected to a laptop) to attack, B to dodge, and left trigger to line up your slow-mo mega slashes to destroy ogre armor, lop off ogre limbs, or relieve ogre necks of their heads.
Slower taps of the X button took me through a sword swipe and into an area-of-effect circular slash, holding down X launched me and the current enemy into the air where I stabbed at them away from their friends.
getting ahead
Right bumper uses a whip to grapple you towards whichever point is highlighted. You can use that to move around or scale ogres, gaining height and neck access.
You can’t do the finishing move without stocking up your energy bar. You do that by rescuing civilians, clearing mobs and completing objectives. This also gives skill points which unlock skills which you can use to either shore up weaknesses in your own playstyle or augment strengths.
I watch executive producer, Derek Neal, play a later level. He took on a scrawny grey ogre in gold armor. That armor was harder to destroy than the wooden stuff I’d faced, but also offered grapple points so a player could theoretically bypass the limb-chopping and just vault up to the neck area. Other flavors include spiked armor you need to get the ogre itself to destroy, and bright steel which is entirely indestructible.
I am competent, but Neal is proficient, combining skills and manipulating systems. He tells me that the game will provide various ways to compare results—modes where players can test their skill or see how they measure up against friends, a daily challenge with leaderboards, a horde mode, and a skirmish mode with a code so friends can play the same scenario—all offering ways to monitor or show off your mastery.
line up your slowmo mega slashes to destroy pieces of ogre armor