ORION: Prelude is a sci-fi shooter about defending human outposts from dinosaurs, with up to five players online in the original edition’s cooperative modes. You can aim from a first-person view or switch to third person, then take on waves with rifles, jetpacks, class abilities, and vehicles. The original edition offers more than twenty maps, so terrain varies between sessions. The tone is closer to a noisy arcade horde shooter than a careful survival simulation: dinosaurs charge across broad, bright landscapes while gunfire, weather, and explosions compete for your attention.
The version matters when you choose a group size. In the original Prelude edition, Survival and Conquest support up to five players. DANKIE is developing a refreshed version on a separate Steam branch, with a four-player plan and a first preview centered on Survival; the original edition remains available as its own branch. Remote Play Together is supported, but native split-screen co-op is not confirmed for the original version, so same-computer play is not a safe assumption.
Hold the generator through another wave
Survival gives your group a clear anchor: keep the generator standing while dinosaurs attack in successive waves. The machine is part of the match objective, not scenery. A damaged generator can need attention while the rest of the map remains busy with incoming creatures. The waves give a match a simple rhythm, but they do not make each round identical: dinosaur types, weather, and the shape of the map change what reaches the group and when.
Between waves, you can visit the armory and upgrade stations to spend credits on weapons and augmentations. Dinosaur kills help build that match currency, so a busy round gradually opens more options than the pistol you start with. Augmentations alter things such as health, shields, movement, or class abilities. You can carry that temporary shopping spree into the next attack, while persistent character and class levels add longer-term unlocks across sessions. The distinction is useful: a weapon bought for one match is a short-term boost; leveling gives your account more choices to bring into later games. Across 150 levels, that persistent track extends beyond the credits earned in any one match.
Conquest takes the same broad premise into open-world maps. Rather than holding one generator on a tighter arena, your team moves between objectives across a larger landscape, with vehicles and more room to explore between encounters. That scale changes the pace: one fight can give way to a ride across open ground, then another group of dinosaurs and an objective. Conquest supports five-player cooperative play. Vital allows up to ten players but mixes player-versus-player combat with dinosaurs, so that larger cap does not mean ten friends can join the same co-op team. Some Conquest maps place several structures in the objective chain, so a match can move from one defensive position to another instead of ending when a single generator is safe. That gives vehicles a practical role beyond firepower: they help cover the distance between contested locations. The open-world scale still has a purpose, since the route between objectives is where dinosaurs can catch the group away from a protected position. The ride and defense loop is more about crossing distance than holding one room, so a session can shift between vehicle travel and wave defense.
Conquest is the mode with the larger technical caveat. The original 32-bit build can hit memory limits on modern Windows, especially in Conquest’s larger maps. That does not mean every match fails, but it is useful context when your group is choosing between open-world objectives and a more compact Survival session. The original branch remains preserved in its existing state while work continues on the refreshed version.
Three classes change how you cross the map
The original Survival setup offers Assault, Support, and Recon. They share the wider weapon selection, but each brings a different ability into the fight. Assault’s jetpack gives you a way to rise above ground-level obstacles and reach elevated positions. Support carries a healing device that restores teammates. Recon can cloak to break away from attention. Those abilities change the small moments around a wave: a teammate can reach a ledge, get a heal, or slip away from a cluster of dinosaurs.
Class choice does not lock someone into a narrow weapon job. You still buy from the shared arsenal, while class upgrades improve the abilities and bonuses that distinguish each option. That leaves room for the group to focus on whatever has become pressing in a particular match without requiring each player to learn a separate weapon system. It also means the game’s teamwork is visible in short exchanges—one player’s support beam crossing a firefight, another hovering on a jetpack, or a cloaked player moving beyond the front of a horde.
The arsenal leans into exaggerated sci-fi firepower: pistols and rifles sit beside shotguns, miniguns, explosives, melee weapons, and other unlockable gear. The original version has seven vehicles, including buggies, tanks, aircraft, rocket sleds, and mechs. They add speed and heavy firepower to the maps, but they do not replace the infantry combat at the center of a round. A vehicle can make a long stretch of Conquest easier to cross or give the team a loud new way to meet a dinosaur wave; on tighter maps, it can also make the screen even busier.
Dinosaurs are both the horde and the theme
The enemies range from small, quick dinosaurs to heavier creatures such as the Tyrannosaurus and Triceratops, with flying species adding threats from above. In the cooperative modes, their main job is to pressure the objective and interrupt the group’s movement. They close distance quickly, force players to turn away from a shop or vehicle, and can make a previously quiet part of the map feel unsafe. The scale is deliberately pulpy: a futuristic soldier can be firing into a crowd from a hover-capable vehicle while a much larger dinosaur bears down from the other side.
The game also lets you play as dinosaurs in selected modes. Rampage turns that idea into a different kind of match, and the game includes ten playable dinosaurs. That feature belongs to the game’s broader mode selection; it is not a class option within ordinary co-op Survival. This distinction helps set expectations if your group wants to know whether every dinosaur is another enemy to defend against or a role someone can take on.
Across maps, the visual mood moves between open wilderness, cliffs, forests, snowy areas, and more enclosed spaces. A full weather system and dynamic day-night cycles can shift the look of a match from clear daylight to rain or darkness. The contrast between bright environments and the sudden rush of creatures gives the game a strange, slightly eerie sci-fi tone, although the sound and effects aim more for spectacle than sustained horror. It is a game where a T-rex attack can be alarming for a moment and absurd a few seconds later, once vehicles and explosions fill the screen.
A broad mode list, with co-op at its center
The wider mode selection has more than horde defense. Survival and Conquest are the clearest cooperative choices for friends who want to fight AI-controlled dinosaurs together. Slaughter is duration-focused, Prehistoric offers custom variables, and Rampage lets players control dinosaurs. Competitive options include deathmatch, territory control, and duels; Vital mixes player combat with dinosaur threats.
That variety gives a group more to sample than a single wave mode, but it does not mean every mode is equally suited to a small friend party. The original cooperative group limit is five, while some mixed or competitive modes can host up to ten total players across opposing sides. The co-op modes do not offer ten friends on one team. Online play offers lobbies, matchmaking, and a server browser. If your group depends on password protection or direct Steam-friend invitations for a private match, check the available options before planning around that setup. Keyboard controls include WASD movement, mouse fire and aim, and keys for jumping, sprinting, reloading, interacting, and class abilities. Full controller support and Remote Play Together are also available, though the original version’s same-computer co-op setup is not confirmed.
Who will enjoy this kind of co-op?
ORION: Prelude fits a group that wants a direct objective, a large dinosaur horde, and a collection of weapons and vehicles to unlock. Survival makes the premise easy to grasp: defend the generator, spend credits during breaks, and see what the next wave brings. Conquest adds a larger map and multiple objectives for a group that wants more distance between fights. Three classes, persistent levels, weather changes, playable dinosaurs in separate modes, and a wide selection of gear offer reasons to sample different sessions.
The roughness is part of both its appeal and its limit. The wave combat is straightforward and can feel repetitive; dated presentation, awkward vehicle handling, and simple dinosaur behavior may wear thin if your group expects a polished modern shooter. If loose, chaotic action sounds fun, the mix of jetpacks, heavy weapons, and dinosaurs gives each session an arcade flavor. The refreshed branch aims to improve feel and presentation, but the original and in-development versions have different group limits. Check which version your friends plan to run before you settle on a five-player session.