Set in an apocalyptic world after a meteor has struck the Earth, seven gods from ancient times awoke, and are now attempting to take control of the post-apocalyptic world.  Players control one of the seven large beasts and battle each other to determine the planet’s fate.  Human civilization was immensely affected by the meteor strike and humanity regressed over time back to the Stone Age.  The planet is now referred to as “Urth” by the survivors of the catastrophe.

The event caused seven creatures to emerge from their slumber deep within the Urth’s crust.  The seven creatures are worshiped as gods by the segregated human tribes.  Four of the creatures are known as “Virtuous Beasts” who want to keep peace on Urth, and the other three creatures are known as “Destructive Beast” who want to cause the world further chaos for their own benefit.

While fighting, human tribes will wander nearby and worship their gods during battle.  During battle the creatures can toss the tribesmen around or devour them to regain strength.   Eating the opponents’ worshippers will result in a bonus, increasing the players score while eating your worshippers will penalize the player.

Primal Rage was a major commercial success spawning the creation of a line of action figures, comics, a novel and other merchandise tie-ins.  The commercial success of the arcade game caused Atari Games to achieve more profit from the game’s related merchandise then the game itself.  The game was ported to many 16-bit and 32-bit home consoles and was promoted by Time Warner Interactive by hosting a “National Primal Rage Video Game Tournament” at Six Flags in October 1995.  Despite the success of the game a sequel was never release, however development of a sequel was in the works but was ultimately cancelled to focus on other projects.