“The age of empires with dinosaurs” is, the developers of the Lords of the dino Recently, at a crowded Gamescom booth, I was given a flattering description of their upcoming RTS England vs. Vikingsaurus. It's not a very accurate description, either. From what I saw of the game, Dinolords is more about lords than dinosaurs, and it has just as much in common with Devil-ARPG style as it does with the classics strategyAnd that's a distinction that could take it out of novelty status.
Technically, you see, you only control the nobleman, who’s been put in charge of defending the kingdom after those crafty Danes fished up some live dinosaurs from the ice fields of Greenland. You push him around, deploy abilities from his little ARPG hotbar, and, most importantly, you’ll only ever see the world from the isometric camera permanently affixed to his head. You still order the construction of buildings and castle walls, and give orders to units of troops assembled to fend off the biting horde (it’s still very much like a real-time strategy game in that regard), but your perspective never changes.
This is understandably upsetting to strategy veterans who have spent decades in full control of their god's vision. But when it comes time for battle, the mix of genres produces something different, if a little frenetic. By the time the Vikings show up, they're practically at the gates, and getting into trouble with sword and bow attacks is as vital as issuing orders to underlings.
To fit the tighter outlook and more practical approach to combat, giving orders is simplified in seemingly clever and intuitive ways. Giving a specific order to multiple units involves holding down a specific key, freely hovering over the desired soldiers, and then releasing it – a sequence that can be completed in the blink of an eye and requires no additional menus. And while you shouldn’t expect a grand, all-out war, there’s still scope for individual moments of tactical trickery.
On more than one occasion, I witnessed Northplay game designer Kasra Tahmasebi sending his lord to leap into the enemy vanguard to engage the more dangerous dinosaur cavalry at the rear. This wasn’t the most obvious play, when a squad of infantry was already up to their swords at the castle gates, but one that exploited the lord’s greater strength and speed to take on a greater threat. Take the time to steal your own dinosaur eggs (and build the necessary hatchery), and you’ll eventually be able to ride the beasts yourself. I wasn’t able to see this scenario play out exactly, but it seems that with the added agility granted by riding a velociraptor, you can get around the hero camera’s lack of vision by more quickly scanning the outskirts of a battlefield.
Enemy raptors can also scale your city walls and devour archers in their wake, while Danish T-rexes are apparently bred to specialise in destroying static defences. In other words, they’re not just here for laughs – each dinosaur breed presents a distinct tactical challenge that you’ll need to plan for and counter in different ways, and while your overlord is strong, he’s also no Diablo-level god-slayer that you can ignore your more traditional RTS units.
If you ask me, all those battles sound like they're too much for my poor brain, no matter how noble your birth. The city-building aspect of Dinolords seems positively serene in comparison, and perhaps a little more conventional: you have resources to collect, buildings to construct, and a citizenry to keep happy. Dinolords, meet Stately lords. Except you’re still navigating the world exclusively as your singular lord, so at first, all of that wood and stone will need to be amassed by you personally. You’ll eventually recruit enough broods to automate things, but you can still pitch in whenever you want—a feature I’m especially fond of, given how many times I’ve zoomed in on my lazy townspeople in Manor Lords to force them to move resources faster. In Dinolords, I’ll literally be able to do it myself, rushing the transport of goods with my dash ability or helping build a monastery if I deem it’s taking too long. This isn’t about being a control freak, get it? I’m just a town lord.
Similarly, I find Dinolord’s combat-packed RTS/ARPG hybrid more appealing than I would normally find for a pure strategy game. Obviously, if everything was thought of like that, the genre wouldn’t exist, but I’ve personally never been into Total War (or, indeed, Age of Empires) because I like the sense of direct action in games, and seeing all the little men doing the actual action seems more of a helpful influence at best. Having my own lord to throw into the fray might be what bridges that gap.
Plus, being personally invested in the prosperity of your fiefdom still strikes me as a good fantasy strategy, with or without the comical sci-fi element. You might end up having an arrow made from wood you've collected, by the arrowman you've recruited to work in the workshop you've built, using the materials you've gathered, and frankly, that's about as cool as any dinosaur. Except for the Spinosaurus, obviously.
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