A love letter to our Community

Dearest Extinction Elites,

By now we’re sure you’ve all read our last blogpost about the fact that Second Extinction won’t be exiting Early Access after all.
We’re sorry to have made you wait for so long, but we needed to explore all available courses of action first. The decision not to continue development was not made easily, and neither was the announcement of that decision.
Every single person who worked on Second Extinction has invested a lot of time and love into making their specific aspect of the game an unparalleled work of art.
We’re incredibly proud of the game that we’ve made and developed for close to 4 years now.

If you were following our Social Media channels and live streams in the weeks leading up to the initial launch date, you’ve already seen glimpses of what we had in store: The Savanna map, the Acid Bull, and the first truly flying enemy, the Dactyl.

We look back at the work we did and see the many fans who loved it as much as we do, the countless hours of fun it brought everyone who played it and the impressive feats of design and engineering that went into creating Second Extinction.
We took a wild idea that had never been done in this capacity before and made a kickass game. That is something to be proud of.
In our hearts, we know that we made the best game we could possibly have crafted and we will take all that pride, the love, and the learnings into the games that we make from this point forward.

At this point, we’d like to thank all the awesome people who made Second Extinction possible.
Ourselves, for being a spontaneous and dynamic, persistent and imaginative Dev Team.
Tobias Andersson and Emil Kraftling, who had the idea that started it all.
Zach Abramson, who wrote a killer Soundtrack that could easily contend with any AAA title.
The Budapest Art Orchestra, which recorded said soundtrack with grace and dedication.
And, how could it be otherwise, you.
Thank you for investing into our game out of all the Early Access games that are out there. You saw Second Extinction for what it was, and what it could become.
It means so much to us that we could spend one and a half years working together with you to develop our game into so much more than it set out to be.

Here are some words from our Devs to our players:

“When I started my job as a temporary Community Manager in 2021, I never thought Second Extinction would pull me in the way it did. The passion I witnessed both from the side of my Dev Team as well as my community quickly became my own passion and I was very fortunate to be able to extend my contract and become a permanent part of the game’s development.
I will never forget the first game I ever had the pleasure of working with and the coworkers that welcomed me with open arms and put up with my nosiness when I started. I also won’t forget all of you who made my job so much easier just by being awesome. Special thanks to Ando and Offi_Toast, who in many ways were ambassadors of the community and carried me during the live streams. Another special thanks goes to Rora_Draws and Scarab 1.0 for creating so many stunning pieces of fanart, some of which are hanging at my desk now. You’re amazing!
Cheers and thanks for everything.”
– Diego “Carni” Kaiser, Community Manager

“When we first started out with Second Extinction, it was mainly this crazy idea of a spectacular cacophony of big dinos, big guns and big explosions – all made bigger by the absurdity of the premise. Developing a game is a long and challenging task, and a lot of things can happen throughout to change or bend those initial ideas. But somehow, through a process that had many hurdles – including putting together a whole new team and building the Malmö studio around them as they worked – the core idea of Second Extinction was so strong and easy to love that it stayed true through all the hoops and hurdles that presented themselves . I’m immensely proud and impressed by the entire team that has poured their everything into the game and I think and hope that we have brought some moments of pure joy and thrill to players. While it hasn’t ended the way we hoped, I will bring with me the excitement of watching the community play the game, the many learnings we made along the way as developers and the unmatched satisfaction of blasting a raptor in the face point-blank with a shotgun.”
– Emil Kraftling, Creative Director

“Second Extinction has a ridiculous amount of awesomeness regardless of the angle you look at it from. Just being a game about dinosaurs is already a massive win. Snappy gunplay, eerie color palette and the fact that the project’s code name is Shoebill cranks up this awesomeness to a new level.
Working on this kind of project is very much like you imagine making games when you are a kid. You’ve got your first PC or console and think “I would make a game about dinos, explosions and orbital lasers bringing death from above!”
Turned out to be not that easy of course, but having fun and making people smile in excitement is at the core of it.
Needless to say, I’m proud that I joined this team right after it was launched in Early Access. Second Extinction has become something really important for all of us. It had always been fun to make new updates and at the same time prepare for our big release using the knowledge we’ve been gathering throughout the last years.
At the same time, it had brought many challenges, some of which we unfortunately could not overcome.
Yet we’ve learned so much with your help and support. Playing internal builds with the team, watching you play live builds, reading feedback – It all helped, sparked imagination and brought hope.
It’s heartbreaking to say goodbye to such a project and the truly dedicated community around it. There will be new games we are going to develop, but Second Extinction will definitely be an experience to remember.
Despite how the final decision turned out, I realize there’s so much new to focus on, learn and explore, so I still think of this as a glass half full… of dino juice.
Cheers!”
– Mike Vorobiev, Lead Producer

Until we meet again within another Avalanche project,
The Second Extinction Dev Team