Fossilfuel is a Survival Horror First-Person Shooter by indie developer DangerousBob LLC (aka John Broyhill), released on Steam on August 20th, 2021.
The game takes place in an underground facility beneath snowy Great Sitkin Island in Alaska, where the Sierra Research Institute is cloning dinosaurs for scientific research. However, one day the facility is attacked by Russian Spetznaz, and in the chaos the dinosaurs break loose and begin to run amok. You take the role of a newly hired game warden who shows up on their first day of the job just as the whole place goes to hell.
A sequel, Fossilfuel 2, was released on February 19th, 2024.
Fossilfuel contains examples of:
- 20 Minutes into the Future: The game takes place several years after 2025, but depicts a Ghost in the Shell-level Cyberpunk future with worker droids, spider bots, and gauss weapons (which behave like normal guns except they deal a bit more damage). This is most obvious once you almost reach the surface, at which point you briefly speak with a character with extensive cybernetics, and your own character even remarks they've had cyber-eye surgery. Prior to that the environments resemble modern day office and warehouse areas.
- Genre Shift: The "Raptor Isolation" DLC is more of a straight horror experience as you do not have access to any weapons ( until the Final Boss fight) and must evade and hide from your enemies, most notably a Utahraptor that roams the section of the facility you're trying to escape.
- Giant Spider: Pig-sized Meganeura appear fairly regularly as enemies (appparently they're giant spiders instead of giant dragonflies because SRI used spider DNA to fill in gaps in their genetic code). A SUV-sized Queen version is one of the game's bosses.
- The Great Serpent: The game's first boss is a Titanoboa, which is fought in a large partially submerged cave area.
- Half-Human Hybrid: One of the early bosses is a giant lizardman-like ogre called "Homo Erectus Rex". A note you can find in a hidden area early on mentions that SRI director Elon Moosk is secretly creating human-dinosaur hybrids For the Evulz. In the "Raptor Isolation" DLC you'll witness even more dinosaur-human hybrids who resemble emaciated ghouls.
- Heavily Armored Mook: The invading soldiers include several Heavies wearing "Juggernaut"-style EOD armor suits, allowing them to soak a few dozen rounds of assault rifle fire before dropping. They also tend to wield heavy weapons such as flamethrowers or grenade launchers.
- Inventory Management Puzzle: The game has a Resident Evil 7-style inventory system. You start out with only 8 inventory slots, and have to figure out what weapons, ammo, and healing items you want to take with you and which you discard or leave behind. You can also find or purchase backpacks which increase your inventory space.
- Mêlée à Trois: The dinosaurs and hostile soldiers will attack each other as well as the player.
- Mighty Glacier: Most bosses can take and give a beating, but move slower than you do, the main threat being if you accidentally back up into a dead end while fighting them.
- Mole in Charge: The Big Bad turns out to be SRI's director Elon Moosk, who set the whole incident in motion because the government discovered he was making dinosaur-human hybrids and were going to shut him down, causing him to decide to defect to the Russians, using the dinosaur outbreak as cover so he could escape with all the research data.
- New Work, Recycled Graphics: The game does incorporate paid assets, due to being made by only one developer. Notably, the Final Boss uses the same model and possibly the same moveset as the final boss of Severed Steel.
- Not Quite Dead: Soon after you defeat the spider queen boss, it revives, bursts through a wall, and fights you for a second round.
- Revolvers Are Just Better: You acquire a .44 magnum revolver about a quarter of the way through the game. Notably, it is not the superweapon it is in other Survival Horror games, dealing only moderately more damage than basic 9mm weapons, making it poor against bosses. It does, however, deal just enough damage to kill most basic enemies in one hit, who otherwise require several 9mm rounds to kill, so it is fairly useful for dealing with regular enemies. Overall it more closely resembles the Half-Life magnum rather than the Resident Evil one.
- Shield-Bearing Mook: Some Spetznaz soldiers carry ballistic shields that block your shots.
- Shotguns Are Just Better: You get a shotgun very early in the game; it deals high damage and ammo for it is reasonably common, making it an all-around very useful weapon.
- Take That!: The Big Bad is one at Elon Musk, seeing how he has practically the same name as the latter and is portrayed as a Corrupt Corporate Executive who is in the pocket of the Russiansnote .
- Your Size May Vary: The first time you see the T-Rex, it's attacking the Spetznaz and is easily Kaiju sized. When you face it as the final boss in the "bad" ending, it's a much more realistic size.
