Cancelled Arcade Game ‘Primal Rage II’ Now Playable With MAME

Primal Rage garnered a moderate level of success when it hit arcades in the early 1990s, and in subsequent years Atari’s prehistoric brawler was ported to pretty much every contemporary home console (and a coupe of handheld ones, too). The ports came with varying degrees of arcade accuracy, but for the most part were deemed to be worthy alternatives to other fighters of the era featuring digitised visuals. Primal Rage’s main draws were the level of gore that each fight was soaked in; and the source material of dinosaurs and other beasts of prehistory tearing massive chunks out of each others faces. What’s not to like?

It appears that a sequel, Primal Rage II was underway and intended for release in arcades in late 1996. However, due to Atari’s forecasts predicting less than stellar financial performance of the planned sequel, Primal Rage II was quietly cancelled and the game was largely forgotten. Indeed, Primal Rage II did remain little more than a footnote in the history of cancelled arcade games until some time after 2010, when a ROM of the unfinished game was dumped online. Unfortunatley, the game could not be played as the software apparently required a bespoke peice of arcade hardware to run. All of this has recently changed though, with the development of a specialised build of MAME called MAME4RAGE2 being released. MAME4RAGE2 has been specifically created to run Primal Rage II and as you can see from the video below (from YouTuber Owlnonymous, complete with insightful commentary), the game does indeed look like an interesting prospect.

Rather than fight as the huge beasts from the original, this time the players fight as ‘avatars’ – humanoid characters that have the ability to momentarily morph into animalistic alter egos with increased power and approximatley 100% more claws with which to rip and tear. The creation of MAME4RAGE2 will undoubtedly come as a pleasant surprise for fans of the original Primal Rage, and it warms the cockles of our hearts that the sequel that never was is now available in fully playable, blood-soaked form.