Code Violet is a dinosaur survival horror throwback with solid gunplay, big ambition, and way too many rough edges for its price.
It has been a long time since dinosaur survival horror felt like a real thing. Back in 1999, Capcom dropped Dino Crisis and basically gave you Resident Evil but with dinosaurs. Same inventory, same puzzle-heavy progression, same locked doors and keycards, just swap zombies for raptors.
It worked, and it worked well enough that Dino Crisis became a full trilogy with spin-offs. Ever since then, fans have been asking, sometimes begging, Capcom to bring it back. After Resident Evil 2, 3, and 4 all got remakes, it felt like Dino Crisis was next in line. Then Exoprimal happened, which looked like Dino Crisis for about five seconds before turning into something completely different.
That’s where Code Violet from Team Kill Media comes in. When the trailers first came out, they looked like the closest thing you were going to get to a modern-day Dino Crisis. Dinosaurs and a lone protagonist trying to stay alive in a facility that has gone wrong. It was hard not to get excited for fans like us who have been waiting for decades.
The setup is easy to understand. You are Violet Sinclair, a woman who has been pulled from the past and dropped into the Aion bioengineering complex, which has gone completely crazy. Dinosaurs and other tests have taken over, and your job is to stay alive and find out what went down at the facility.
The story is not dumped on you all at once. Instead, you learn about the world through data pads, environmental clues, and cutscenes.
It looks good on paper, and there are some really interesting ideas here, especially as the story begins to explore topics like genetic experimentation, trauma, and freedom. The ideas themselves are not the problem. It’s how they are executed. A lot of the best parts of a story don’t happen in cutscenes at all, and that’s a big miss especially when you’re trying to fill in the boots of a cult classic like Dino Crisis.
But, in contrast, some of the best storytelling aspects actually come from the environment itself, even if that too maybe lackluster at times. You can hear stomps echoing in the hallways from far away. You know some big-ass dinosaur is after you, or you have to run away because you can’t fight what is coming at you. In this aspect, the game has managed to nail the horror element.
The cutscenes, on the other hand, are bad. Some scenes end so suddenly that you don’t know what’s going on, and the animations feel stiff. You can tell that there was ambition here, but the execution doesn’t always work, and if you don’t read every data pad, you won’t get to see a lot of the story.
Code Violet is based on limited resources at all times. There isn’t much ammo. There aren’t many healing items. There aren’t many crafting resources. You are always deciding whether to fight or not, or whether it’s better to avoid a fight altogether. Combat is more like run-and-gun.
Enemies are aggressive and push you hard, so you have to shoot while you run away, funnel them through hallways, or use the environment to buy yourself a few seconds. It is quick and scary, just like a survival horror game should be.
Exploration is very important. Once you get new tools or key items, you should go back, unlock shortcuts, and go back to places you’ve already been. Progress is slow and deliberate, and a lot of the tension comes from pushing into unfamiliar spaces while knowing you do not have the resources to comfortably deal with everything waiting for you.
There are even small Easter eggs scattered around, like ducks you can pick up or a goose that sometimes appears watching you, which adds a strange layer to the experience.
You can use a wide range of weapons, including pistols, shotguns, submachine guns, and assault rifles. Grenades are there, but the shotgun does so much work that you probably won’t need to use them very often. Normal difficulty is probably the best choice for your first playthrough because the game can be hard, especially at the beginning. Raptors can really mess you up, and at the beginning, when you don’t have many save rooms or supplies, it’s not uncommon to die a lot until you get the hang of things.
Some frustrating design choices and bugs devalue the combat systems. One of the biggest issues is how status effects are communicated. When you start bleeding out, there is almost no clear indication that it is happening. You can be sitting at over 90 percent health, with no warning sounds or obvious visual cues, and then suddenly you just die after bleeding out.
The game does not do a good job telling you what is happening, which forces you into kind of tiptoeing your way around the game without fully being able to immerse yourself in the game. Every time you get hit, even lightly, you feel compelled to use a tourniquet or a full med kit just to be safe, burning through resources you might not have needed to use otherwise.
Poison works in a similarly confusing way. Getting hit by certain dinosaurs can poison you, and originally, there was no clear feedback at all. After an update, the screen turns green, so you at least know something is wrong, but even then, it is not always clear whether you are taking damage over time or what the actual impact is.
Because of this uncertainty, you end up playing extremely conservatively, constantly running back to save rooms to restock antidotes, tourniquets, and med kits. Later in the game, when save rooms are more common, this becomes manageable.
Also, it can be hard to hit your target. It’s hard to use the camera, especially near walls, and it’s hard to tell what auto-aim is supposed to do. This is especially annoying when you’re fighting smaller enemies that swarm you, because you miss shots that you wouldn’t normally.
Still, the core loop is addictive. Even when the systems are clearly broken, there’s something enjoyable about moving forward and slowly making your way through the facility.
Then there are the dinosaurs themselves, which should be the stars of the show, but they function more like side characters. The designs clearly pull from classic dinosaur aesthetics, and the sound design is excellent. Hearing a velociraptor screech echo through a dark hallway can still make you tense up, especially with headphones on. In terms of presence, they work. However, their behavior isn’t as impressive.
The AI is basic. Dinosaurs tend to charge straight at you, attack, back off, and repeat. There is very little variation, very little adaptation, and once you see the pattern, it’s predictable. The animations do not help, often looking awkward, which makes some of the creatures feel more like animatronics than living threats.
Boss fights suffer the most from this. They usually take place in large, open areas where the enemy slowly walks toward you and attacks. It functions, but it is not particularly exciting, and for a dinosaur horror game, that is a big miss.
Visually, Code Violet is a mixed bag.
Team Kill Media has heavily relied on Unreal Engine 5 and talked a lot about the visuals, and while the game can look great at times, it is not consistent. There are moments where the lighting, weather effects, and environmental design genuinely shine. One rainy sequence stands out as a highlight, with lighting and particles that look impressive enough to make you stop and use photo mode. The fusion of sci-fi elements with Victorian-era architecture is one of the game’s more appreciable creative choices.
Sadly, that quality goes down in more open areas, where the lack of polish is obvious. This inconsistency is most noticeable in cutscenes. The animations look unfinished, the character models aren’t very detailed, and the whole thing feels rushed. Some animations in the game, like those of some bosses, reduce tension because they just look goofy in all honesty… no hard feelings, Team Kill Media.
Another major visual issue is the heavy use of AI-generated images throughout the game. The purist in me sees AI as an absolute abomination, especially in creative fields such as gaming, and they genuinely make the game look and feel cheap. They are everywhere, and they stand out in a bad way.
Strange skeleton paintings and odd imagery are scattered across the environment, and instead of adding atmosphere, they degrade it. They do not look like they belong in the world, and they do not even try to pass as hand-crafted assets. Given the small team, their inclusion might have been easier to overlook if they were subtle, but they are not.
One of the best things about the game is its sound design. Gun sounds are sharp and satisfying, and environmental sounds play a big role. The facility creaks, distant roars echo, and mechanical sounds make you feel tense and on edge. But you have to wear headphones when you play. Voice acting, on the other hand, isn’t always good. The acting can feel stiff, and cutscenes often don’t have any music or background noise.
By the time you reach the end of the game, the cracks are hard to ignore.
The final encounter ends quickly and abruptly, sort of like how Stranger Things ended, raising more questions than it answers. Plot threads introduced earlier are left unexplained, and character motivations are not always clear. You can see the shape of a much better game here, one that could have been something special with better attention to detail.
Code Violet is not the worst game you will ever play. There is fun to be had, especially in the gunplay, and there are moments where the atmosphere really clicks. A full playthrough can take anywhere from six to nine hours, and New Game Plus encourages replaying to find missed secrets and data pads.
The problem is the price. At $50, it is hard to recommend. There are one too many rough edges and too many unfinished-feeling systems to justify that cost. At around $30, or as part of a subscription service, it becomes a much easier sell.
There is potential here with Code Violet, and with more experience and refinement, a sequel from Team Kill Media could be something worth getting excited about. As it stands, though, Code Violet is a code red. It wants to be Dino Crisis so badly, and sometimes it gets close, but it never quite delivers the experience the trailers promise.
