Dinoblade Review Score and Everything You Need to Know — The Dinosaur Soulslike Taking Steam by Storm

Four years ago, a 44-second animation clip of a Spinosaurus swinging a greatsword went viral on the internet and collectively broke the brains of everyone who saw it. That clip — never intended for public consumption, made by a single animator for his portfolio reel — became one of the most-wishlisted game concepts in Steam history before a single line of game code had been written. Now Dinoblade is a real game, and it’s delivering on basically everything the premise promised.

The game launched on July 23, 2026, hit No. 1 on Steam’s Popular Releases chart almost immediately, and is currently sitting at 89% Very Positive across more than 400 reviews. For a debut title from a one-person studio, that’s a remarkable result. Here’s everything you need to know about it.

Who Made Dinoblade?

Dinoblade is essentially a solo project. Jean Nguyen, a Senior Gameplay Animator at Sucker Punch Productions — the studio behind Ghost of Tsushima and Ghost of Yōtei — created the original viral animation clip in August 2022 as a portfolio piece. He posted it online, it exploded, and the response was so overwhelming that he made the decision to turn it into an actual game under the banner of his own studio, Team Spino LLC.

Nguyen spent four years developing Dinoblade while working his day job at Sucker Punch. The game is published by Singapore-based indie publisher Boltray Games, which handles distribution. That’s essentially the whole team — one animator-turned-developer, one publisher.

The fact that the demo accumulated over 500,000 Steam wishlists and a 97% Overwhelmingly Positive rating from nearly 3,700 reviews before the full game even launched tells you everything about how much anticipation had built up around this thing.

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What Is Dinoblade and How Does It Actually Play?

The premise is exactly as advertised: you play as a young Spinosaurus wielding a colossal Great Sword — held in its mouth — and fight through a prehistoric world transformed by a cataclysmic event. Rival dinosaurs are your enemies, some of them armed with their own brutal weapons. Tyrannosaurs carry battleaxes. There are dinosaurs wielding halberds. An Ankylosaurus gets picked up and used as a weapon. It is deeply, specifically unhinged, and it works completely.

But underneath the delightful absurdity is a legitimate Soulslike built on serious design principles. The combat borrows from two distinct FromSoftware templates rather than just one:

• From Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice — a posture-based parry system where successfully parrying attacks builds an enemy’s posture meter. Fill the meter and their guard breaks, opening them up for a devastating finishing strike. Aggressive, well-timed play is mechanically rewarded rather than just dodging everything.
• From Dark Souls — interconnected world exploration, hidden secrets and gear rewards, stamina management, and the core “learn the patterns, die, improve, repeat” loop the genre is built on.

Combat is animation-priority — once you commit to an attack or dodge, you cannot cancel out of it mid-animation. That design choice is what separates genuine Soulslike games from action games that just borrow the aesthetic. It means every decision has weight, and button-mashing will get you killed against bosses who demand pattern recognition and discipline.

Boss fights are the highlight. Reviews consistently praise them as the peak of what Dinoblade does — dramatic, visually spectacular encounters that fully justify the dinosaur premise. Imagine a T-Rex with a war axe as a boss fight, with animations that make you feel the weight of every clash. That’s the kind of encounter Dinoblade is delivering.

Soulslite vs Soulslike — Where Dinoblade Actually Sits

A distinction worth drawing: some reviewers are labeling Dinoblade a “Soulslite” rather than a full Soulslike, and that’s a meaningful distinction for experienced genre fans. The game is shorter than a typical FromSoftware title — completion times suggest a relatively compact runtime — and the overall challenge level, while genuinely demanding, sits a step below something like Elden Ring or Lies of P.

For newcomers to the genre, that’s actually a selling point. Several reviews specifically note that Dinoblade is one of the more approachable Soulslike experiences for players who have always been curious about the genre but bounced off harder entries. For veterans, it’s an easier clear but a highly entertaining one — the premise is novel enough that running through it still feels worth the time even if it doesn’t pose the same challenge ceiling.

What Reviews Are Saying — Praise and Criticism

The consensus across player reviews and early critical coverage is consistent. Here’s where it lands:

What People Love

• The animations — Nguyen is a professional animator first and it shows. The movement and combat animations on the Spinosaurus player character are described across multiple reviews as some of the most impressive work in the genre. This is not a game where a dinosaur awkwardly holds a sword — every attack and dodge looks like it was motion-captured by an actual prehistoric apex predator.
• Boss encounters — Consistently flagged as the game’s high point. Dramatic, pattern-rich fights that make full use of the dinosaur combat concept.
• The parry system — The posture-based approach from Sekiro translates well to the premise and rewards aggressive skilled play.
• The premise being fully committed to — Reviewers repeatedly note the game isn’t just trading on its meme origins. It’s a real Soulslike that happens to star dinosaurs, not a joke game with Soulslike elements.

What Needs Work

• Technical performance — Multiple reviewers have flagged bugs and performance issues, including frame rate problems on certain hardware configurations. Dinoblade runs on Unreal Engine 5, and optimisation appears to be a work-in-progress.
• Hitbox inconsistency — A fairly common complaint in the reviews, with some attacks feeling imprecise.
• Balance — Some elements feel uneven, which is typical for a debut Soulslike but still worth noting for players expecting a polished experience out of the gate.
• Steam Deck — Currently rated “Playable” rather than Verified on Steam Deck. It runs, but it’s not optimised for the platform yet.

The rough edges are real, but they’re the rough edges of an ambitious debut game by a solo developer — not fundamental design flaws. The technical issues in particular are the kind of thing that patches address over time.

Price, Discount, and Free Demo

• Full price: $19.99
• Launch discount (until July 30): 10% off → $17.99
• Free demo: Still available on Steam — the same demo that earned 97% Overwhelmingly Positive from nearly 3,700 reviews. Try it before buying if you’re unsure.

At $18 during the launch discount window, Dinoblade is one of the better-value Soulslike releases in recent memory. The demo is a genuine representation of what the full game delivers, so there’s really no reason not to try it first if you’re on the fence.

For more on recent Steam highlights, check out our write-up on Shift at Midnight, another indie game that launched this week with 90% positive reviews, and Bookshop Simulator’s 1.0 launch — July has been a genuinely strong month for Steam indie releases across the board.