I played Exoprimal during two of its betas, and honestly, I was far from impressed. This feeling continued even after I dove into the game on launch day, but there’s more to it than meets the eye. The game can be a blast once it opens itself up, but that takes a bit of doing as it can require significant repetition early on.
However, that doesn’t excuse the progression from simply being a poor idea, nor does it ameliorate the fact that the game should absolutely not be a full-priced AAA title when it’s got far too much in common with many free-to-play games. Anyone looking to blast some dinosaurs with mech suits can very possibly have a great time despite all of this, though. I’m glad I gave it a fair shake, but things should have been better.
Exoprimal has a surprising amount of story. New cutscenes that progress the plot are unlocked as you play matches. You play as Ace, the newest squad member of Hammerheads that fights dinosaurs by using mech suits. When the Hammerheads get trapped on the island of Bikitoa by a corporate AI named Leviathan, Ace is repeatedly sent back to the year 2040 to compete in five vs five matches against another team while Leviathan pipes in dinosaurs, all for the purposes of acquiring combat data. The plot can often seem like a strange backdrop to a PvEvP game, but the characters are likable, and the narrative is actually fairly interesting. There’s also a mountain of lore to unlock.
At launch, there is only a single mode known as Dino Survival, but this is misleading. This mode places you on a team with four others and sees you competing against another team. Matches are divided into two parts and see you racing against the other team to complete all of your objectives faster. The first team to complete all of their objectives wins. Many of these objectives boil down to killing dinosaurs as fast as possible, but players must also defend zones, capture territory, or push their payload.
“Exoprimal can be a lot of fun once it opens itself up…”
But you won’t see many of these at first. 60 matches into Exoprimal, and I only saw the territory capture match type a single time. There’s no way to pick what you want, either. You just have to hope you’ll get it. And, unfortunately, there’s no horde mode, even though the game is practically begging for one.
The second half of each match is called the final mission, and the menu lets you pick whether you’d prefer to do this as PvP, which lets you directly attack the other time, or PvE, which has more objectives like the first part of the match. You get bonus experience for letting the game pick, which seems like a way to keep people playing the PvP style. You can level up your player level, suite level, and battle pass with experience from playing each match.
Special missions also tie into the plot of Exoprimal, including a few boss fights and a couple other unique missions that mostly see you join a ten-person team. The big problem here is that you must put some hours in before seeing much variety. On launch day, no one had unlocked anything, so I had to repeatedly play the exact same map with the exact same couple of final missions again and again. That is something that won’t be much of an issue going forward, but it did colour my impressions regarding my first several hours. This is, of course, a terrible first impression for Exoprimal to make for new players, who might grow sick of this content.
That being said, more maps and enemy types became available as I progressed, although there are only a few maps in total. They’re a decent size, and objectives see you cover a fair bit of ground, but it’s not quite enough for a game like this. You can pick from any of seven Exofighters (the game’s mech suits) from the get-go, but the last three must be unlocked and purchased with in-game currency. Or you can buy a head start upgrade with real money that will unlock them from the beginning. Doing this for a $60 game is greedy and another instance of Capcom shooting itself in the foot regarding the way it’s marketing Exoprimal to players.
There’s also a battle pass which, naturally, has a premium tier that costs another $10. The regular battle pass will give you some unlocks too, but you’ll need to get your skins and the like from the game’s loot boxes. None of this has any business being in a full-priced game, let alone one that isn’t a new entry in a franchise that’s beloved enough for players to let this slide. On top of that, the balance between the Exofighters is far from perfect. These suits are divided between damage, tanks, and support units, and each fulfills a role. Yes, it’s a lot like Overwatch.
Suits all have a few moves to pick from, including their main attack, various other abilities, and mobility moves, such as quick dashes or backflips. These abilities can be improved by unlocking and upgrading modules, of which three can be equipped. Another neat thing is that, during final missions, players on either team can take control of dinosaurs and use them to impede each other. Throwing yourself against the other team as a giant beast can be pretty satisfying, but these don’t control all that well. And speaking of big dinosaurs, the hitboxes on their attacks can be wonky, regardless of your suit.
Unfortunately, the suits aren’t all created equal. I initially mained a melee damage suit called Zephyr, which is quite a lot of fun to use. However, I noticed that I simply wasn’t doing much damage with him and kept finding myself at the bottom of the leaderboard. I assumed I was just terrible until I noticed that many other players were reluctant to play as him. I eventually switched to Barrage, a suit that fights with explosives, only to find myself regularly getting the top score and finding my team winning matches far more frequently. Simply put, Barrage is much, much better than Zephyr. And this isn’t the only instance of the problem. More balance work is needed.
“When all is said and done, I like Exoprimal and am going to continue playing it, especially once the second mode becomes available later this month.”
Once you figure everything out and get a good grip on the game (and you unlock more objectives and maps), Exoprimal can be a lot of fun. I found myself having a great time with it once I wasn’t doing the same thing repeatedly. There aren’t a ton of different enemies, but there’s a decent variety. Shooting grenades into hordes of raptors or slamming them into a T-rex’s face is satisfying as all get out. The combat here is responsive and engaging. It’s also fun to manage your team’s health as a support or protect squishier team members with a tank.
When all is said and done, I like Exoprimal and am going to continue playing it, especially once the second mode (which you need to beat the game to unlock) becomes available later this month. Capcom shouldn’t have locked so much of the content behind story progress and, hell, this game should either be free or, at least, cheap. $60 is too much to spend on a game that has this much of a free-to-play philosophy baked in.
But if you’re looking for a competitive game about killing dinosaurs as fast as possible, Exoprimal can be very enjoyable if you’re the patient sort. You’ll just probably want to wait for a sale (or play it on Game Pass). That is, if there’s even enough of a player base to keep the game alive, the choices Capcom has made will definitely scare plenty of people off.
