Dino Path Trail Review

Dino Path Trail reimagines the Wild West as a deadly frontier where dinosaurs never went extinct. Developed by Void Pointer, the game casts players as Lucy, a determined gunslinger on a quest to avenge her mother and rescue her kidnapped sister. Armed with a trusty revolver, Lucy faces both prehistoric predators and ruthless bandits as she journeys across procedurally generated biomes ranging from barren deserts to icy tundra.

The core gameplay blends survival mechanics, resource management, crafting, and combat. Players gather materials such as wood, metal, minerals, and dinosaur carcasses, craft tools, food, and gear upgrades. Managing Lucy’s health, stamina, thirst, and temperature is essential, as is dealing with the mounting bounty on her head, which intensifications the difficulty as runs progress. Tying everything together is your mobile base camp. Pulled by a trusty triceratops, your caravan can be upgraded and expanded, adding a sense of progression as you play.

The Taste of Impeccably Grilled Velociraptor

Combat in Dino Path Trail deviates from typical twin-stick shooters. Instead, aiming and firing involves holding the right trigger, aiming with the left stick, and releasing at the right moment. Timing is crucial for both shooting and dodging. This rhythm-based approach extends to resource gathering, where chopping trees, skinning dinosaurs, and mining all become timed mini-games. While this system rewards precision, it can start to feel repetitive and even tedious during longer sessions.

The game’s roguelike structure means each run is different, with procedural biomes and a variety of enemies. However, the differences between environments are mostly cosmetic, and after a few runs, the gameplay loop can feel repetitive. While the bandits offer some variety in combat, dinosaur encounters lack depth. Despite working with a paleontologist to model dinosaur behavior, enemy AI is fairly basic, with reptiles exhibiting predictable patterns.

Survival of the Moderately Fit

Dino Path Trail gets the fundamentals right: it’s a charming, hands-on survival sandbox with an interesting premise. However, it falls short of roguelike royalty due to limited long-term progression, a lack of biome diversity, and monotonous resource gathering. Quality-of-life tweaks, such as rebalancing stamina and improving the tutorial would help, but the game’s biggest need is more variety to keep runs feeling fresh.

Dino Path Trail is a passion project that delivers a novel blend of survival and roguelike mechanics in a dinosaur-infested Wild West. Its engaging crafting and base-building cycle are highlights, but repetitive gameplay and shallow enemy AI hold it back from greatness. With further updates and more content, it could evolve into a standout in the genre. For now, it’s a solid choice for players seeking something different, but expect some rough edges and repetition along this trail.

Dino Path Trail was played on PC with review code provided by the publisher.