Ever since the Jurassic Park pinball there’s been a law that, if there’s a dinosaur involved, it has to eat the ball. Great pinballs follow this law and disappointing ones don’t, so it’s looking likely that the Zaccaria Pinball adaptation of Primal Carnage: Extinction has all the necessary bits in place already. While not ready for a full reveal yet, a Primal Carnage pinball teaser has been released to announce the game and give a brief peek at one of its tables, but there’s a lot more pinball action ahead for its 2024 release.
Pinballs old, antique, and brand-spanking new
Zaccaria Pinball has been around for a while now, initially adapting the European pinball manufacturer’s tables into digital format and then branching out into new fields. First were retrofitting the existing licenses into the slightly odd layouts of 1950s and earlier pinballs, coupled with modern-styled reimaginings that included fancy effects and table toys. Once that was done the game took a turn in an unexpected direction, adapting Postal and Postal 2 into two four-packs of tables. Each pack had a near-antique table in the Retro style, a more 70s/80s take on pinball with the Solid State table, late-90s design with the Remake, and finally a fully-modern version for Deluxe. The Primal Carnage pack will be following that formula to a T, a mini-tour of pinball history and the different types of tables based on the asynchronous multiplayer dinosaurs vs humans PVP shooter.
Zaccaria Pinball Brings Vintage Silver Ball Library to Steam
While it’s early to talk about table specifics yet, the brief shot in the teaser shows a giantt-rex(-UPDATE-I have been informed this is, in fact, an acroanthosaurus. Please adjust expectations accordingly.), two mini-tables with flippers and a lane covered by a giant rib cage. An exclusive shot of the Retro table (on the video below) shows a more open design, with several banks of targets and a field of bumpers, not to mention atmospheric lighting that feels like it’s coming up from an old filament bulb housed underneath a lane divider. One of the fun things about a physical game like pinball being around as long as it has is seeing how the different tech combined with changing audience tastes leads to differences in style and design, and in addition to being an all-around solid digital pinball game Zaccaria Pinball does a great job of playing with the game’s history.
While the Primal Carnage pack is DLC, the base Zaccaria Pinball game is free so there’s no real pressure to get anything for it other than the one set, if that’s all that catches your interest. For people wanting more, Zaccaria Pinball has a VR upgrade option that’s honestly one of the best ways to play digital pinball, fully compatible with the Oculus and other Steam VR-compatible headsets. In the meantime, one last big, obvious question remains- If Postal and Primal Carnage get tables, what else might be coming along?
With Primal Carnage only getting a small teaser there’s obviously no other announcements for the moment, but it’s fun to think about what a Dead Cells or Dusk table might look like. The developers of Magic Pixel are open and interested in the idea and welcoming to the right partners, though, so with any luck Primal Carnage can be joined by a healthy number of other great gaming licenses in the future.
