Carnivores: Dinosaur Hunt

I grew up on the original 1998 Carnivores, so loading into Dinosaur Hunt felt like a reunion with an old friend who showed up to the party a little underdressed. This is the fifth time this franchise has been repackaged and resold in various forms, and the PC Steam version arrived in 2022 as essentially a Unity engine port of the console release that had already launched a year prior. That history matters, because it explains a lot of what feels thin about the package. At its core this is a slow, methodical first-person hunting sim set across several open islands on a fictional alien planet. You start with a license to hunt Stegosaurus only, and earn gems by making kills that you then spend on new dinosaur licenses, island access, and upgrades to your weapons and M.I.S.T. gadget. That gadget is actually a highlight: it bundles a radar, binoculars, a wind direction indicator, and a dinosaur call into a single piece of kit, and reading wind direction before stalking a Triceratops or luring a Ceratosaurus into range with a call does create genuine tension. Weapons include a starting rifle, a crossbow, and an unlockable sniper rifle, and you can aim for weak spots on each species to score one-hit kills and earn bonus gems. There are also lethal, non-lethal (tranquilizer), and observer modes, which is a nice touch for players who just want to soak in the atmosphere without body counts. The problems are harder to ignore. Only six dinosaurs are available in the base game, which is painfully thin compared even to earlier entries in the series. Unlocking everything requires a grind that reviewers consistently called excessive relative to the content on offer. The head bob is aggressive and cannot be turned off, which is a real problem for motion-sensitive players. The shooting itself feels inconsistent: the crossbow in particular struggles against tankier species like the Ankylosaurus, and the sniper rifle is awkward at close range. A Cretaceous Terror Pack DLC adds more species, but the fact that additional content is gated behind extra purchases stings when the base roster already feels light. There is also no multiplayer of any kind, which is the question I always ask first. No split-screen, no co-op, no versus. This is a solo experience, full stop. Who does it work for? Honestly, players who have nostalgia for the 1998 original will get the most mileage here. The slow-burn stalking loop, the wind management, the trophy room where your kills hang on the wall in real scale: those elements scratch a specific itch that almost nothing else does. If you have never hunted a Stegosaurus from downwind while watching the wind indicator blink on your gadget, there is something here worth experiencing. But if you come in expecting the depth of a serious hunting sim or the variety of a fully-featured action game, the budget constraints show fast. Think of it as a weekend hobby game rather than a long-haul commitment, and temper expectations on the content count.

Riley · Scout Team

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