Review: Carnivores: Dinosaur Hunt – PS5, PS4

Carnivores: Dinosaur Hunt, has you hunting the ‘deadly dinosaurs’ of the pre-historic age but the only dangerous carnivore around is you. Assuming you’re a meat-eater…

In Carnivores: Dinosaur Hunt, you gear up and get to tracking in this first-person hunting simulator set across three islands where you are the hunter and the dinos are the hunted.

When I first saw a trailer for Carnivores: Dinosaur Hunt, I heard a dinosaur make a bear noise and thought it was absolutely ridiculous and I wondered who would want to play this? Well, it turns out that I would be that person and honestly, it wasn’t that awful.

Every hunt starts with you being dropped off on an island by what can only be described as a spaceship. After that, you’re on your own to explore and start hunting with only a rifle and a tracking device for company. The game encourages you to look for tracks in the dirt to track down dinos. I got more enjoyment in running aimlessly across the island until I saw a promising blip. Each to their own, right?

Hunting dinosaurs in Carnivores: Dinosaur was an interesting challenge as each dinosaur can spot you in different ways, such as scent, sight or sound. So, depending on what you are hunting, you will have to keep an eye on which way the wind is blowing, how close to the target you are, and of course, to make sure you’re crouched down so that you’re not signalling your bad intentions to the dinosaurs. 

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Bolting is something many of these Jurassic-age creatures will do once they see you. I say many, but there aren’t that many, and I would have liked a bit more variety in the trophy room.

The start of the game tasks you with hunting rather docile creatures which was boring. But, after earning enough trophy points to unlock other islands and finally meeting some of the more exotic (and dangerous) dinosaurs, I did start to enjoy the game a bit more.

The dinosaur models themselves looked fairly good, though it’s hardly Jurassic World levels of realism. I can’t say for sure if they acted like their real-life extinct counterparts, but they roamed freely across the islands doing whatever dinosaurs do, which seemed to be a lot of sleeping and eating. No complaints from me, though, as some did look very cute laying amongst the ferns.

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After bagging a big dinosaur, make sure to get your spaceship to pick it up so that you get your rewards, and to see the ridiculous spaceship again. Once you leave the land of the dinosaurs for a well-deserved break, you can access your trophy room where you can marvel at your morbid display of dead animals.

I expected to have a large variety on show but it quickly became the same dinosaur over and over again as I struggled to afford a license to hunt anything else during the early hours of the game.

Affording equipment in Carnivores: Dinosaur Hunt was another issue I faced. Each dinosaur you hunt will give you some tokens that can be used to buy skills, weapons, or a dinosaur hunting license. You also earn trophy points which you can’t use to buy things but instead they count towards a separate score that will slowly get higher until you can unlock a new island with new beasts to slay.

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Only earning a few tokens or trophy points a hunting session meant that unlocking new things took forever, and many times gaining another dinosaur license felt lacklustre as they all acted rather similar. Certain equipment could also jeopardise the amount of bonus trophy points you achieve, further slowing down progression.

Slowly saving up tokens will benefit you in the long run, because going into a hunt with several dinosaur licenses will make it easier to earn more tokens and trophy points and therefore increase your overall hunting score.

There were benefits to buying new weapons. I found enjoyment trying to score my hunts with the crossbow, which required skill to get critical hits, and the sniper rifle which became my personal favourite due to both its accuracy and how easy it was to use.

The weapons did have some drawbacks, such as how much noise they made or the amount of time it took for them to reload, which are both things you will have to consider while hunting dinosaurs. What risks are you willing to take?

Finding what skills and weapons best suit you is one of the exciting parts of Carnivores: Dinosaur Hunt especially as you can simply sell it back for the same amount of tokens if you find that it isn’t for you. Mixing and matching equipment made playing feel far more casual as I could make my own goals on what I wanted to achieve.

In the end, I did enjoy my time with Carnivores: Dinosaur Hunt. As a game that was originally on mobile and then remastered to a variety of consoles, it has held up pretty well. Those that enjoy slow-paced hunting games where you have the freedom to do whatever you like will enjoy it while others may get bored of the slow-paced grinding of tokens and trophy points.

Review Disclaimer: This review was carried out using a copy of the game provided by the publisher. For more information, please read our Review Policy.

Primary version tested: PS4. Reviewed using PS4.