Dinoblade: soulslike where a sword-wielding Spinosaurus tries to parry the meteor

Dinoblade is a new soulslike launching on Steam this week, developed by Team Spino, in which players control a young Spinosaurus wielding a colossal Great Sword held in its teeth. The game features combat against other armed dinosaurs, with the overarching goal of preventing the extinction-level meteor impact. The premise humorously imagines dinosaurs surviving by parrying the meteor.

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It's taken centuries of human advancement, but soulslikes and demanding third-person action games have finally reached a level of cultural proliferation where we as a society can ask the all important question: What if the dinosaurs could have simply parried the meteor?

That's the tantalizing possibility suggested by Dinoblade, a probably paleontologically accurate soulslike launching on Steam later this week that portrays dinosaurs just as the fossil record tells us they lived: As big lizards getting into sick as hell swordfights by swinging around weapons they're holding in their teeth.

"Step into the role of a young Spinosaurus, wielding a colossal Great Sword forged from ancient power," says developer Team Spino in Dinoblade's store description. "Confront rival dinosaurs, some armed with brutal weapons of their own, all in a desperate fight to prevent a looming extinction."

The latest Dinoblade trailer is like a highlight reel of all the coolest things we would have daydreamed about as dinosaur-obsessed youths before society taught us how to be ashamed of imagination: There are tyrannosaurs with battleaxes. There are tyrannosaurs with halberds. There are tyrannosaurs biting down onto ankylosaurs to use them as weapons. Meanwhile, the spinosaurus player character is unleashing some of the wildest combat animations anyone has ever caused a spinosaur animation rig to perform.

And, as alluded to earlier, the trailer ends with that heroic spinosaurus seemingly preparing to enter a boss battle with the very meteor that wiped out all of dinosaur-kind.

(Image credit: Team Spino LLC, Boltray Games) Unfortunately, dinosaurs didn't know about i-frames. But that might change! And I'm clearly not the only one eager to see how it might: Earlier this month, Team Spino announced that Dinoblade has amassed over 500,000 wishlists on Steam. And frankly, I'd be concerned for us all if it hadn't.

Dinoblade launches on Steam on July 23, but there's a demo available now if you can't bring yourself to wait.

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