[h3]A bit of (pre)history[/h3]
The Saurian project was [url=https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1379624404/saurian-an-open-world-dinosaur-survival-experience]crowdfunded in June 2016[/url], raising over USD 200,000 and unlocking ambitious stretch goals such as multiplayer and VR support.
It was released on Steam as an Early Access game in August 2017. The pace of updates and devblogs felt quite decent for an indie title, though it slowed down with time as these things always do.
Four years later, in May 2021, the dev team [url=https://sauriangame.squarespace.com/blog/2021/5/30/1242020-disclosure-statement]revealed on their blog[/url]that the former manager of the project had stolen around USD 75,000 from the company's bank account. He was removed from the company, but the damage had already been done and the project seriously lost momentum.
The latest (last?) patch was released in June 2023. The [url=https://sauriangame.squarespace.com/blog/2024/12/28/saurian-devlog-125]latest devlog[/url] was posted in January 2025, specifying that the dev team was down to 5 unpaid volunteers working on Saurian in their spare time. It now seems highly unlikely that the game will ever receive any further update. The Steam forum and Discord server of the game still count some die-hard fans who believe in a rebound, but 14 months of radio silence and nearly 3 years without a patch tell me that keeping hope is more of an act of faith than a reasonable expectation.
[h3]What's in this fossil bed[/h3]
So let's review the current content. There are two playable species: the dakotaraptor, available since the Early Access start, and the triceratops, added in October 2020. They play radically differently. The triceratops is a heavy weight herbivore which prefers living in a herd. This game is a simulation aiming for scientific accuracy over pure fun, so playing as a slow moving herbivore feels rarely thrilling. You eat ferns, drink freshwater (saltwater will increase your thirst), interact and mate with your fellow herd members, and learn to identify bipeds. What's moving behind these trees: an lone anatosaurus looking for a waterpoint, a grumpy pachycephalosaurus or an actual threat? Playing as a young triceratops, I once had to lead my siblings across a river despite the risk of getting caught by crocodilians as a large tyrannosaurus was hunting us. He ate my sister and let us go, satiated.
Outside of these rare situations of danger, the life of a herbivore feels pretty dull. The Dakotaraptor on the other hand is a highly mobile carnivore armed with the dromaeosaurid's signature sickle claw. Since it needs to hunt for a living it offers a much more dynamic experience than the trike. As a hatchling or a juvenile you're actually an easy target for a number of other creatures who'll eventually become your own prey if you survive, from the speedy archeroraptor to the poisonous palaeosaniwa and the various crocodilans lurking in or around rivers and swamps. Your parents will soon see you as food as well. You'd best run away from them and focus on catching orange-headed lizards called chamops and cat-sized marsupials named didelphodons, or look for dead mosasaurs beached on the coast. You can use your scent to locate most preys.
As you grow up, you may try your luck against larger game such as ostrich-like ornithomimids, young triceratops, or even an anatosaurus. You need to balance your needs between thirst, hunger and health: an excellent health is required to attract your mate as well as to resist the poisonous bites of palaeosaniwa.
[h3]Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event[/h3]
While Saurian offers some decent fun, its limited content means that you'll experience it all in a matter of hours. You'll soon be able to identify any creature from a distance since all species exist only as adults, outside of the dakotaraptor and the triceratops. You'll never get to confuse a baby anatosaurus with an archeroraptor for instance.
The game is missing half of its promised playable dinosaurs: the pachycephalosaurus and tyrannosaurus are in-game but can't be controlled. Several non-playable dinosaurs on the to-do list, such as the ankylosaurus, aren't implemented at all. Two achievements can't be unlocked since they require features that were never developed or completed.
Finally, the visuals look rather dated and the UX is poor. There is barely any feedback when you hit or get hit by another creature, which makes combat difficult to read.
I've a lot of respect for indie devs trying something new and ambitious, and I'm sure the team did as best as they could with their limited means. Unfortunately the project was robbed of its budget and the content remains incomplete 10 years after its crowdfunding. Saurian will never land, just like the quetzalcoatlus gliding forever in the sky above its game world.
