Call of Duty dev's Dino sword fighting game that started out as a joke secures 10k wishlists in its first day

a spinosaurus with a huge sword in its mouth faces off against smaller dinos, also with swords in their mouths
(Image credit: Team Spino LLC)

A former Call of Duty developer is making a game where dinosaurs fight each other with massive swords, and it got 10,000 wishlists in its first day on Steam.

Dinoblade is the kind of video game that makes me love video games. Developed by Jean Nguyen, who currently works at Sucker Punch as a senior gameplay animator, it first started off as a joke after a video they posted of a Spinosaurus going buck-wild with a Buster Sword had people clamoring for them to turn it into a full game.

The game's Steam description describes it as an action RPG that "takes place right after a major event that changed what we know about dinosaurs." Clearly, they've got massive swords now.

"You shall set out on a journey as a young Spinosaurus that can use a Great Sword fighting against other Dinosaurs that uses weapons as well to stop an extinction." How can a dinosaur sword stop an extinction? Maybe by parrying a meteorite. There's already a game that lets you parry a nuke.

A trailer for Dinoblade shows off the kinetic combos that all manner of dinosaurs in the game can pull off. It looks like you play as a Spinosaurus duking it out with a lot of bigger foes. One of them even has a colossal scythe to cut you to ribbons with.

The fighting style looks very Devil May Cry, with a bit of old-school God of War thrown in. Dinosaurs throw each other in the air and juggle the unlucky loser with sword strikes. There are also parries and counters, so the combat could go quite deep in the full game.

For now, it's available to wishlist on Steam, and everyone in the replies to Nguyen's tweet has giddily shared that they'll be adding it to their own. There's no release date yet, but it's been in development for "a little over 1 year now."

Check out all the upcoming video game release dates so you know what else is on the horizon.

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Issy van der Velde
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I'm Issy, a freelancer who you'll now occasionally see over here covering news on GamesRadar. I've always had a passion for playing games, but I learned how to write about them while doing my Film and TV degrees at the University of Warwick and contributing to the student paper, The Boar. After university I worked at TheGamer before heading up the news section at Dot Esports. Now you'll find me freelancing for Rolling Stone, NME, Inverse, and many more places. I love all things horror, narrative-driven, and indie, and I mainly play on my PS5. I'm currently clearing my backlog and loving Dishonored 2.