Jurassic Park meets Elden Ring is 'doomed to succeed' as it takes over Steam
Topics: Steam, Indie Games
Featured Image Credit: Team Spino LLC
Topics: Steam, Indie Games
As soulslike games continue to boom in popularity, developers have to find new ways to keep the genre alive without simply retreading new ground. That's why we've seen an increase in some weird and wacky soulslike games, as well as major releases like Lies of P (a soulslike with Pinocchio) and Black Myth: Wukong (a soulslike with monkeys).
The likes of The Last Hero of Nostalgaia served as a direct pastiche of FromSoftware's work defining the soulslike genre, while Another Crab's Treasure combined the idea of a soulslike and saving the planet, and Steam is full of similar games of varying quality.
While we wait patiently for the mythical Bloodborne remaster, Dinoblade asks what would life be like if someone mushed Jurassic Park together with Elden Ring.
Described as an intense action RPG, Dinoblade feels like that trend of when Elden Ring players were modding everything from Shrek to Thomas the Tank Engine into FromSoftware's 2022 epic. This time, we've swapped the Tarnished out for an actual dinosaur.
That's right, Dinoblade harks back to 1993's SEGA Genesis Jurassic Park, where you could play as a Velociraptor. Not quite, but the MVP this time around is a plucky Spinosaurus that wields a massive blade.
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Evolution has been turned on its head as sentient dinosaurs now duke it out to save themselves from looming extinction. Our heroic dinosaur must traverse a series of unique biomes, with each being guarded by an 'Alpha' apex predator.
Some enemies will be no match for your weaponry, while others wield impressive arsenals of their own.
Starting off with an unexpected viral tweet in 2022, developer Jean Nguyen showed an animation of a dinosaur pulling a sword combo, but had little idea how massive it would become. Four years later, Dinoblade finally hit Steam on July 23, 2026.
On sale at $17.99/£15.97, Dinoblade is already proving a hit among soulslike fanatics and paleontologists alike. With overwhelmingly positive 90% reviews (based on 473 at the time of writing), it appears to be hitting that sweet spot between kooky and cool.
Cheering Team Spino LLC's intrepid title, one fan told us not to expect Elden Ring levels of polish but wrote: "The game is honestly just a dopamine rush, and a fun time watching dinosaurs just duke it out. I do recommend this game, it will give you an EPIC time and pure serotonin.”
In one review titled "Doomed to Succeed", another added: "What we've got here is a vibe machine, basically, churning childhood daydreams into pixels, giving shape to the first and best thing your mind conjures upon hearing 'sword' and 'dinosaur' in the same sentence.
"Sitting here now, I remember each scripted clash of weapons against big bads more than I do the jank of combat, and obviously the more front-flipping lizards your game has, the easier it is to overlook its sins."
A third concluded: "This game is peak. I haven't been so excited for a game release since the remake of Dead Space. I've been following this game for years and I'm not in the least bit disappointed."
Like the soulslike genre ebbs and flows, dinosaur games are coming back in a big way.
Similar to how Sony is sleeping on Bloodborne, it clearly doesn't know what to do with Dino Crisis. Instead, June 2026's PlayStation State of Play revealed The Lost Wild as a clearly Dino Crisis-inspired release.
Let's also remember Capcom's abysmal Exoprimal, which even included a red-haired character who could've easily been Dino Crisis' Regina.
Elsewhere, there's Saber Interactive's Jurassic Park Survival, recently getting a much-needed update when we feared the worst.
Sticking with the JP theme, Clawed is coming to Steam later this year and sends players into an abandoned dinosaur theme park to explore and (hopefully) escape.
Our love of dinosaur games is in no danger of going 'extinct', but as we're likely to be fossils of our own by the time Capcom revisits Dino Crisis, Dinoblade looks like a great way to pass the time.