Dinoblade has you duke it out as dinos with buster swords clamped between your gnashers

PVP dinosouls

The in thing when it comes to dinosaur conversations now is this: "Yeah but did you know that they weren't all like, lizardy, but covered in feathers". You might want to chuck in that chickens are basically dinosaurs, because their feet have a "Triassic Flange", a (made-up) term that will make you sound authoritative. If you really want to showcase your knowledge, though, you may want to mention that dinosaurs may have actually fought with large swords lodged between their teeth. Dinoblade demonstrates this! And no, they haven't discovered swords alongside dinosaur fossils yet because palaeontologists have been unlucky thus far. "Soon", you tell them.

Jean Nguyen, a senior gameplay animator at Sucker Punch, started working on side project Dinoblade in 2023. And I am thankful, because it looks like a right laugh. Obviously, much of it is still a work in progress, but the premise is this: you are a dinosaur, you have a sword, and you must fight another dinosaur who also has a sword. But the fights don't look like when two giraffes fight, with necks and heads flailing at each other. Oh no. There's dodge-rolling, power slams, and blades that blast spectral missiles.

Much of the footage lies on Nguyen's Xwitter, which showcases little tangoes between dinos worked on by Nguyen himself, together with fellow animator Randy Nguyen and composer Samuele Vona. Have a gander at these:

It sort of reminds me of Mushiking: The King Of Beetles, which was a Japanese arcade game I remember seeing a lot in Japanese arcades or department stores when I was a kid - if I recall correctly, there were even trading cards? Not that Mushiking is Soulsy like Dinoblade, being more of a rock-paper-scissors fighter, but I dunno. It's stirred up some memories of two beasties going at it, and that's nice.

You can keep up with Dinoblade's progress over on Nguyen's Xwitter page or over on the official Dinoblade Facebook page.