Reptilian Rising pits historical heroes against cyborg dinosaurs, and the true winner is the audience

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I came, I saw, I punched a velociraptor. And you can try the Steam demo today.

A triceratops with a minigun in its mouth. A raptor with a laser strapped to its head. A T-Rex covered in cyborg enhancements. And across the field, readying their weapons - Cleopatra, Robin Hood and Albert Einstein, the last of which the game's trailer proudly promotes for his "theory of fight-ativity".

Damn it, some ideas are so good you wish you'd had them yourself. And this isn't even mentioning the Dictatorsaur, a giant three-headed Frankenstein thunder-lizard sporting the faces of notable historical dictators. So everybody else can give up - we've found a conceptually-perfect boss fight.

Gregarious Games' Reptilian Rising, presented in the Future Games Show Powered by Mana, is looking like a glorious, glam-rock homage to everybody who ever ran a Dungeons and Dragons game without properly preparing, to anybody who mixed all their action figures from different sets together, or just all those kids who spent hours in the playground playing "who would win in a fight between".

A turn-based rogue-like that presents itself in the style of 80s action figures on a TTRPG, the game focuses on heroes from different eras coming together to battle back nefarious time-travelling dinosaurs and lizard monsters, using strategy to gain the tactical edge and gaining power across each campaign. 

Interestingly, it seems like the time travel element isn't just for context, but an integral part of the gameplay. By exploiting the physics of time travel mid-combat, you can bring in more allies, teleport across the map with the occasional paradox, or even clone yourself. Seems a bit irresponsible to linear history, but on the other hand, we'll gladly allow it if it means you can stop these Cretaceous creeps from taking over the White House. 

Reptilian Rising already has a demo out that players should definitely try in preparation for the full release later in 2022, where it'll be available on the App Store, Google Play and Steam, where you can wishlist it right now. Alternatively, follow Gregarious Games' progress, updates and shared tidbits @ReptilianRising on Twitter. If nothing else, you'll get a lot of photos of robot dinosaurs. 

For more awesome games featured during today's Future Games Show, check out our official Future Games Show Steam page.

Joel Franey
Joel Franey
Guides Editor, GamesRadar+

Joel Franey is a writer, journalist, podcaster and Very Tired Man with a BA from Brunel University, a Masters from Sussex University and a decade working in games journalism, often focused on guides coverage but also in reviews, features and news. His love of games is strongest when it comes to groundbreaking narratives like Disco Elysium, UnderTale and Baldur's Gate 3, as well as innovative or refined gameplay experiences like XCOM, Sifu, Arkham Asylum or Slay the Spire. He is a firm believer that the vast majority of games would be improved by adding a grappling hook, and if they already have one, they should probably add another just to be safe. You can find old work of his at Eurogamer, Gfinity, USgamer, SFX Magazine, RPS, Dicebreaker, VG247, and more.