Extinction Day Review: I Tried to Wipe Out Humanity… and It Got Weird Fast

TL;DR

• You play as the apocalypse. Not “inspired by.” Not “morally complex.” You are the meteor.

• Think Plague Inc., but it found steroids, a flamethrower, and a personal vendetta.

• Loads of systems: disasters, war, perks, combos… all trying to kill everyone faster than humanity can panic-build a space Uber.

• Early signs are good… but also a bit like buying a sports car that occasionally forgets how to be a car.

• Verdict: Promising chaos engine. Not yet the final boss of destruction.

Extinction Day doesn’t ask if humanity deserves to survive.

It assumes the answer is “no” and hands you the tools to prove it.

Right now, it’s not flawless. Not even close.

But it is interesting. And in a world full of safe, predictable games where you rescue kittens and save the day…

Sometimes it’s nice to be the meteor.

This game gave you the power to end civilization, then left you sitting there with a normal desk like a junior accountant at the apocalypse. Fix that properly with the Titanwolf XXL CSL Mouse Pad 900 x 400 mm, then dive into our best villain games guide and start plotting like you own the atmosphere.

The Premise: You’re Not the Hero. You’re the Extinction Event.

Most games ask you to save the world.

Extinction Day looks at that idea, laughs, flips the table, and hands you a nuclear button.

Your job is simple: Wipe out humanity before they escape to a giant space Ark like a bunch of cockroaches with Wi-Fi.

No moral dilemma. No tragic violin soundtrack. Just you, a globe, and the overwhelming urge to ruin everyone’s Tuesday.

You deploy plagues, trigger disasters, start wars, and chain everything together like a psychopath building a Rube Goldberg machine made entirely of suffering.

It’s elegant. It’s evil. It’s exactly the kind of thing CRIMENET exists for.

Gameplay: Plague Inc. Went to the Gym and Came Back Angry

At its core, Extinction Day is a strategy sim where destruction = profit.

You cause chaos → gain resources → unlock bigger chaos → repeat until humanity becomes a historical footnote.

But here’s where it gets spicy:

• You’re not just spreading a disease

• You’re stacking disasters like a drunk chef stacking pancakes

• You’re triggering chain reactions that feel like global-scale slapstick

Storm hits → infrastructure collapses → disease spreads → governments panic → war breaks out → you sit back like a Bond villain sipping tea

It’s not subtle. It’s not delicate. It’s a demolition derby with a PhD.

And honestly? That’s the point.

The Good Stuff: When It Works, It’s Glorious

You actually feel powerful

Some games say “you are a god” and then give you a slightly aggressive spreadsheet.

This one hands you a planet and says:“Break it.”

And you do.

Cities fall apart. Systems collapse. Humanity scrambles like someone just unplugged reality.

It’s satisfying in the same way knocking over a perfectly stacked tower is satisfying… except the tower is civilization.

The system variety is genuinely interesting

You’re juggling:

• Disasters

• Diseases

• Warfare

• Perks and upgrades

• Global reactions

It’s not just “click infection, wait, win.” There’s actual strategy here.

You can specialize, experiment, combo things, or just go full chaos gremlin and see what happens.

The concept is ridiculously strong

Let’s be honest.

“Play as the apocalypse” is one of those ideas so obvious you wonder why nobody did it properly before.

It’s bold, clear, and immediately understandable.

You don’t need a tutorial to know that dropping an asteroid on Paris is probably going to ruin someone’s lunch.

Extinction Day lets you flatten humanity, but it does not explain what happens after the lights go out and everyone starts eating soup with a screwdriver. That gap is where The Knowledge: How to Rebuild Our World from Scratch by Lewis Dartnell earns its keep, and while you’re there, slip over to our Crime Games Hub for more beautifully immoral inspiration.

The Problems: The Apocalypse Has… Admin Issues

Now, before you start planning your digital genocide career, let’s talk reality.

Because this game, at launch, is not a polished supervillain masterpiece.

It’s more like a villain who forgot their evil speech halfway through and had to check notes.

The onboarding can feel like being thrown into a nuclear reactor

The devs clearly tried to improve tutorials after feedback.

But you still get moments where the game looks at you and goes:

“You figure it out.”

And you’re there, staring at the screen like a confused raccoon wondering why your disaster isn’t… doing disaster things.

Early bugs were… impressively ironic

At one point, disasters could do no damage.

Yes.

A game about ending humanity briefly featured disasters that politely declined to inconvenience anyone.

That’s like buying a chainsaw and discovering it’s actually a motivational speaker.

To their credit, fixes have been rolling out. But it tells you something about how rocky the ride has been.

The 3D globe is pretty… and occasionally annoying

It looks nice. It spins. It’s all very “evil Google Earth.”

But sometimes it feels like you’re trying to run a global extinction plan through a decorative lamp.

Clarity matters in strategy games. And here, it occasionally takes a coffee break.

It’s still early days

Right now, the player base is small. Reviews are few. Playtimes are short.

So any “this is the best thing ever made” take should be treated like a man in a trench coat selling watches from the inside pocket.

Give it time.

Let it breathe.

Let other people accidentally destroy humanity before you commit fully.

Community Vibe: Cautiously Evil

Early reactions are basically:

• “This is fun, I like breaking things”

• “This is a bit confusing, why am I not breaking things?”

• “This feels like Plague Inc., but bigger and louder”

Which is honestly a decent place to start.

Nobody’s setting their PC on fire in rage. Nobody’s declaring it the second coming either.

It’s hovering in that dangerous zone called “potential.”

CRIMENET Verdict: Guilty… But Not Yet Legendary

Charge Sheet:

• Conspiracy to annihilate humanity ✔

• Possession of multiple weapons of mass destruction ✔

• Occasional failure to actually destroy anything ✔

• Suspicion of unfinished chaos ✔

Sentence:

Extinction Day is sentenced to “Watch Closely With Interest.”

Because here’s the thing:

This could become the definitive “play as the villain” strategy game.

The bones are strong. The concept is gold. The systems are there.

But right now?

It’s a brilliant criminal mastermind who still occasionally trips over their own evil cape.

Should You Buy It?

Buy it if:

• You love strategy games where you are the bad guy

• You enjoyed Plague Inc. but want more chaos, more systems, more explosions

• You don’t mind a slightly rough launch experience

Wait if:

• You want a perfectly polished experience

• You hate unclear mechanics

• You prefer your apocalypses to run on schedule like a Swiss train

This article gave you plagues, disasters, and collapsing nations, but not the one thing every sensible armchair supervillain should own when the grid coughs up a lung. Grab a Midland ER310 Emergency Crank Weather Radio, then march into our heist games section and keep the end-times energy going without looking like a man who’d lose a war to a toaster.

FAQ

What kind of game is Extinction Day? It’s a strategy simulation where you play as the apocalypse itself. You deploy plagues, disasters, and warfare to wipe out humanity before they escape the planet like panicked billionaires boarding a rocket.

Is Extinction Day just a clone of Plague Inc.? It definitely shares DNA, but this is the louder, more unhinged cousin. Instead of just spreading disease, you’re stacking disasters, triggering chain reactions, and actively dismantling the world like a demolition expert with anger issues.

Is Extinction Day worth buying right now? If you love strategy games and don’t mind a few rough edges, yes. The concept is strong and the gameplay is fun. If you want something perfectly polished, you might want to wait until it’s had a few more updates.

Does the game have bugs or issues? At launch, yes. Some early problems included unclear mechanics and even disasters not behaving as expected. Fixes are already happening, but it’s still settling in like a new tenant who hasn’t figured out the heating yet.

Can you actually lose in Extinction Day? Absolutely. Humanity fights back with science, government responses, and global stabilization efforts. If you’re too slow or inefficient, they’ll escape to the Ark and leave you alone on a very empty planet wondering where it all went wrong.

Is there replay value? Yes, thanks to different disasters, upgrades, strategies, and challenge modes. The sandbox-style design means you can experiment with different ways to ruin everything, which is exactly as entertaining as it sounds.