You know Chrome’s little dinosaur game — the one that pops up when your internet dies? Now imagine that same T-Rex, except this time it’s packing an AK-47, a lightsaber, a portal gun, and 23 other weapons. That’s Dino Swords, a gloriously unhinged mod created by creative agency MSCHF and esports organization 100 Thieves in August 2020. It takes the beloved offline runner and turns it into absolute chaos.
The original Chrome Dino game was created in 2014 by Google’s UX team (codenamed “Project Bolan” after T. Rex frontman Marc Bolan) as a cute distraction when you lose internet connection. It’s deceptively addictive — just run, jump over cacti, dodge pterodactyls, repeat. But MSCHF’s Daniel Greenberg and 100 Thieves founder Matthew “Nadeshot” Haag thought the dinosaur deserved more firepower. “We have all played the Dino game in Chrome, and I don’t know about you, but on our end, we always had these fun ideas of how you could mod it — so we just decided to do it,” Greenberg explained.
The result is beautifully absurd. Each of the 26 weapons is mapped to a different keyboard key, and you collect them by jumping into floating power-up icons as you run. The arsenal pays homage to classic video game weapons: there’s a sword for slicing cacti, a handgun with 12 shots, a tank with the 100 Thieves logo, a laser beam that’s ridiculously overpowered, and even a portal gun that lets you teleport through obstacles. But not everything helps you survive. The double-edged sword has a 50/50 chance of beheading you instead of your enemy. The cigarette gradually turns your dino purple until you die of lung cancer. One pill speeds you up, another slows everything down. Some weapons are completely useless — and that’s part of the fun.
Greenberg’s personal favorites? “The double-edged sword not only because it looks sick, but the fact that it can and will kill you, is just so funny to me. The second is the portal gun because it’s an insanely cool mechanism to have in a 2D game.” The game features daily and all-time global leaderboards, and there are hidden easter eggs that are notoriously hard to unlock. MSCHF even released a limited-edition Youtooz vinyl figure of the armed dinosaur that sold out in 51 minutes.
How To Play Dino Swords
- Press spacebar or the up arrow to jump and start running, just like the original Chrome Dino game
- Collect weapons by jumping into the flashing icons that appear in the air — they cycle through different items, so time your jumps to grab specific ones
- Each weapon is assigned to a letter key on your keyboard (Q for sword, W for handgun, etc.) — press the corresponding key to use it
- Watch your ammo counts carefully since most weapons have limited uses, and be ready to switch when you run out
- Avoid the joke weapons like the cigarette and double-edged sword unless you’re feeling lucky — some items will kill you instead of helping
