When my wife asked me what I wanted for dinner tonight, I confidently proclaimed that I wanted roast potatoes. Obviously, something was stirring deep within my core, a yearning for more spud-tastic survivors-like action that could only be sated by a six-armed hero. Or maybe I was just hungry.
Since enjoying that delicious dinner, I’ve spent my evening playing the new expansion for Brotato: Primal Dread. And you know what, Dear Reader, I’m having a good time with it so far (although I do concede that it’s still early days).
Evil Empire has added a bunch of fresh content to the potato-flavoured bullet heaven, and the free update that landed alongside it was quite useful, too.
What’s in Brotato: Primal Dread?
This hot-off-the-press expansion is the biggest new injection of content to the game since Abyssal Terrors, and it adds a new map/biome (with potholes that are a useful way to funnel certain enemies, but not so much the pterodactyls). On top of that there’s a whole raft of new prehistoric enemies to mash and bosses to vanquish on your way to glory.
The most interesting addition in terms of gameplay is the new evolution stat, and your new dino-themed adversaries range from mecha dinosaurs to slimeball mutations. Depending on where the evolution stat is, your run will move in that direction. For example, in one run where I played as the Droid, that class turned the dinos into mecha-beasts, and I had upgradeable weapons via microchips.
To contend with this evolving threat, you’ve got 10 new characters to master (I just messed up a run with a new one who stops time when he takes damage – very useful) and a bunch of new gear to mix up the gameplay even more.
There are 17 new weapons and 40 new items, according to the Steam page listing, which also mentions new music, but I’ve not heard it because I’ve got vinyl on in the background.
While I’ve not seen everything yet, I did notice a lot of nice references in there for dino nerds to find (and that’s all of us, isn’t it?) and as soon as I finish writing this, I’m going to dive back in for another round or two, so I can try out some of the new weapons and another of the characters: the Archaeologist – a homage to the late, great Sam Neill.
Anything else?
Well, it’s funny you should ask, because there is also a new quality-of-life feature that I really like in the accompanying 1.2 free update.
In the new Item Set menu, you can toggle different expansions and updates on and off, so if you want to focus on the newer content, or even roll back the years and play the base game like it was 2022, you can do that now.
Everything else in the free content update is quite balance-related, and it sounds like that’s going to remain the focus for Evil Empire as Primal Dread finds its way into the hands of more players like me.
Finally, a word on the console version of the content, which isn’t out today. Right now, Brotato: Primal Dread is only available on PC storefronts (for Linux, Mac, and Windows), but as confirmed in October, console players will have to wait until next year to get their hands on the new stuff.
