We got an early look at Dinolords' multiplayer demo to find out just how good the mix of dinosaurs, real-time strategy, and action combat is!
Published: October 26, 2026 | Written by: Lumi~
When playing Warcraft III, have you ever thought to yourself: “You know what this needs? Fewer elves and more dinosaurs.” No? But maybe you should have!
Dinolords calls itself the world's first Hack'n'Strat, combining classical medieval real-time strategy with action-RPG combat. And at least for us, that's a pretty compelling combination, especially when they let you raise armies of dinosaurs. Nine-year-old us would've LOVED this game. No, wait. We still do today!
Building a kingdom, one dinosaur at a timeWe had the chance to try Dinolords' multiplayer demo ahead of its public release (psst, it’s out now!), and spent around 90 minutes playing together against two AI opponents.
The basic RTS gameplay will feel familiar to anyone who's played the genre before. You build your settlement, send workers out to gather resources, and build up your forces to clear hostile camps or prepare to attack your enemies. What’s new is that along the way, you'll conquer egg camps and hatch dinosaurs to fight alongside your human warriors.
Because, why settle for a regular human army when you can bring a T-Rex to the battlefield? At least, if you managed to conquer said beast first!
Having grown up playing strategy games like Age of Empires… Dinolords felt really familiar. So familiar in fact, that we knew exactly what to do - even without any form of tutorial.
We were really excited about the addition of co-op in this. And gladly, it instantly worked for us, and stayed stable throughout the whole match. We have to point that out, as nowadays, not even full-price, full-release titles always manage to run well in multiplayer.
So far, so familiar. But unlike a traditional RTS, Dinolords lets you directly control your own lord in simple, but still fun, action-style combat. You’re not just the bird-view god/goddess controlling everything from above, but can instead jump into the action yourself and fight on the battlefield. Or mow down the entire forest in seconds, if your workers are too slow for your goals.
Being able to control a customizable hero adds another layer to the genre that we didn’t know could work so well until now.
For now, you can pick the basic options, like body type, hair, and three types of armor. But there's already an ominous "companion" sub-menu, which remained empty for now...
We'd absolutely love to see more customization options, as is typical for most RPG's. Adding some type of class system, skill trees, or maybe even equipment to build your character even more in one match could be awesome!
Of course, this was just our first impression of a game that's still actively in development. We don't expect every system to be fully fleshed out yet, but the potential is definitely there.
And then, there's even co-op!Our 90-minute session was enough to show us that the core idea works. Building a settlement, gathering resources, expanding your army, and taking the fight to your enemies is already a fun gameplay loop.
That said, we'd love to see more things to do as development continues.
A quest system could give players additional objectives beyond expanding their territory and fighting enemy armies. A co-op campaign would be particularly exciting, giving us a reason to keep playing together beyond individual skirmishes. Or perhaps the developers have other ideas for bringing the strategy and action elements together in interesting ways.
We're not saying Dinolords needs to become a massive RPG with hundreds of quests and a sprawling story (although, we’d definitely support that as well!). But we'd love to see the two genres complement each other even more, giving us reasons to get attached to our lords, our armies, and the little dinosaur-filled kingdoms we're building together.
For now, the foundation is promising, and we had a good time exploring what the multiplayer has to offer.
We're ready for even more Dinolords!Dinolords is still in development, alpha state even, and our session was only a small glimpse of what the game could become. We had a positive first impression, particularly because the developers aren't simply adding dinosaurs to Age of Empires, but trying something completely new instead.
We're curious to see how both sides of the game develop, and how much more depth the developers can bring to the co-op experience.
Because if there's one thing we've learned, it's that medieval warfare is even better with dinosaurs. Have we mentioned the T-Rex that you can hatch, mount, and then ride into battle to chomp your enemies? Yeah.. that was nice.
The multiplayer demo is now live on Steam, so if you feel the urge to raise an army of velociraptors today, why not stop by and try the game yourself!