Capcom’s Exoprimal gives gamers some exciting dino-fighting action with excellent graphics, but a confusing story.
Exoprimal
Developed By: Capcom
Platforms: PlayStation 4|5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S|X, PC
Release Date: July 14, 2023
It has been some time since Capcom released one of its beloved Dino Crisis titles. The last title was released in 2003 and since then fans have begged Capcom to bring the dino shooter back to life. After years of successful releases, Capcom announce a new dinosaur shooter that would let you take on hordes of enemies with friends online. That game was Exoprimal and it for sure has some very big shoes to fill. Does Exoprimal give us the same excitement previous dinosaur-basing Capcom titles have in the past, or does it pale in comparisons and become a fossil itself? Let’s Dive in…
Exoprimal is Like Dino Crisis on Crack
The gameplay in Exoprimal is very addictive. Because of this makes it hard to put the game down once you start playing. The game is constantly throwing new challenges at you, and it’s always exciting to see what kind of dinosaurs you’ll be facing next.
Exoprimal is set in the year 2043 after a mysterious event called the “Black Hole Incident” caused dinosaurs to appear all over the world. The player takes on the role of an exofighter named ACE as he joins a group of exofighters called the Hammerheads. You and your team must unravel the mystery of Bikitoa Island, an island run by an evil AI named Leviathan. Forced to face hordes of dinosaurs by Leviathan, you are also sent back in time to the year 2040, when the original Black Hole Incident happened to compete in “Wargame Trials”.
These Wargames pit two teams of five against each other in a series of random missions. Players can choose from a variety of different play styles in Exoprimal. At the start screen, you can choose PvP, PvE, or Random. The PvE missions in Exoprimal are a lot of fun and you’ll tackle Dinosaur challenges. The goal in this mode is to complete said missions faster than the enemy’s team. This mode can be challenging but not overwhelming, and mainly focuses on teamwork.
The PvP missions are a bit more challenging, as you complete missions you also face off against the enemy team. This mode made the game feel even more intense, as you are trying to complete your missions, in certain areas of the maps you will run into the enemy team, and then all hell breaks loose. Trying to take down dinosaurs while also trying to defend certain areas or charge certain items while you have five other exofighters trying to kill you was very exciting.
Something you will have to face playing this game that makes the gameplay exciting is the challenges, your team also can call upon a “Dominator.” The dominator is a user-controlled Dinosaur who is teleported near your enemy team that can cause a devastating pause to the enemy’s plan.
This is by far one of the coolest additions to this game, it was already wild enough fighting off hordes of dinosaurs, facing enemies exofighters, and taking on challenges in this game. Adding the Dominator in the mix though really turns up the challenges for you or the enemy team. As you can see the game can be very challenging at times, which is why you must upgrade your exofighters as you play. The more you play, the more points you rack up, and the more you can unlock for your exosuit.
Technically you don’t upgrade your exosuit in this game, you buy modules for your suit and can upgrade them over time (reload speed, regeneration, damage, and more). After using these modules over time, I found which ones I wanted to focus on and made sure they were upgraded the most. Each exosuit, however, is different and you’ll want to use different modules depending on the suit you’re using.
This addition helped with the customization of each one of your exosuits, but I wish there were some kind of direct upgrades for your weapons. You can use modules for your weapon’s damage, but even when I had them attached there wasn’t much of an increase in damage power.
That said, I did very much like the variations of exosuits. There are a total of 10 different suits you can use; all with different types of attack abilities. You have the assault exosuits, tank suits, and lastly the support suits. The three exosuits I used the most in the game are Deadeye (assault exosuit), Nimbus (support exosuit), and Murasame(tank exosuit).
These three classes felt the easiest to use and the best to play in the game. Though many of the other exosuits were fun to play with, Murasame is my favorite. Running into a horde of dinosaurs while looking like a badass samurai, then slicing them easily like a piece of paper was fantastic.
Something else exciting about this game is the addition of Neosaurs. These dinosaurs have been mutated after being transported through time. Not only are their appearances extremely terrifying, but their abilities have been changed as well. While fighting these dinosaurs, Leviathan will summon some of these creatures who have different abilities, including sniping, explosive gas, electrocution, and fire elements. There’s even a NeoT-rex who can shoot lasers out of its mouth.
During moments like this, it felt like I was playing a live-action anime. The style of these dinosaurs are very wild and crazy, and it only made me want more challenges like this.
As I mentioned above, the NeoT-rex is a class of its own. This is not your run-of-the-mill dinosaur, and can only be fought in the final mission with nine other players. The NeoT-rex is very challenging and can take you out with just one hit of his laser, his fire breath that engulfs the whole floor, or his ultra-overpowered melee attacks.
Playing this final mission made me interested in this game for the long run. While it is very fun to play against hordes of dinosaurs or fight off against other ExoFighters… Fighting against this enemy put the cherry on top for me.
A Not So Clear Story
Something I did not like in this game is how the story mode was set up. The layout of the story felt all over the place. Because of it’s online nature, there are multiple times I would join into a multiplayer game and be pushed into a mission I’ve already completed.
This means the story is locked behind certain levels as you play the game. Though I can understand this concept on paper, it was irritating and a bit confusing in practice. As I was playing and progressing through the game there were multiple times I would have to replay the same missions over and over again until my character was a certain level to unlock a new cutscene.
I put in a total of 42 hours in Exoprimal, level my character up to level 55, and completed 100% of the story. Though it was challenging gameplay online the biggest challenge that Exoprimal has is its story mode.
Worse, even after I completed 100% of ExoPrimal’s story, I was left wanting much more (not in the good way). The game told me all the information I needed to understand what was going on, but I felt the Cinematic aspect of the game was missing. At several points, instead of cinematic cutscenes, you are given pictures with audio playing in the background. This is a good informational feed for the player but I felt disconnected from the story when these moments occurred.
The main thing that I was excited about with Exoprimal was the wild and crazy story, after playing the mega hits we have seen come from Capcom over these past 4 years I was really expecting this to be an engrossing game. Though the gameplay is very addictive I felt there were many times that I wanted to skip through informational story bits.
When I play story-based games I tried to be heavily involved into the backstory of the characters and world. There were a few times I started caring about what was happening when I would see cutscenes for the game, but then the lazy voice-over bits completely disconnected me.
It might have to do with my ADHD, maybe I just need story base games that have beautiful colors and wild action in cutscenes. I just know I would have felt more connected to the story being told if it was more cinematic-based than text or picture based.
The graphics of Exoprimal are fantastic. The RE-Engine is something we all must show appreciation too, over the last few games I have realized that Capcom has put a lot of time and effort into their graphical capabilities. Playing this game there was never a moment that I didn’t think I was in a next-generation experience. From the small number of cutscenes to the amazing scenes of hordes of dinosaurs falling out of black holes, to even small moments of you switching out your Exosuits mid game the RE-Engine works wonders and I can only hope to see it capitalized on for many years to come.
There were honestly some jaw-dropping moments during this game. At one moment me and four other players were talking on voice chat, I could hear the other players being just as excited as I was. Seeing this crazy graphical presentation in this game as hordes of raptors and Pteranodons are coming towards you… And then out of know here an Ankylosaurus, Carnotaurus, or a T-Rex is summoned as well, it was a mind-bending spectacle of gameplay chaos. I can only hope that over the next year, the amount of content Capcom plans on releasing for the game will make up for what the story was lacking.
