When Capcom first showed off their latest game, fans thought their cries had been answered as it’s a Capcom game with a LOT of dinosaurs. But sadly this isn’t the return of a classic but instead a whole new IP. Exoprimal is a multiplayer third-person shooter on paper. And the game throws you head first into a future gone wrong and it’s up to you and your mates to set things right.

They’re Back

The year is 2040 and interdimensional time-travelling portals known as ‘vortexes’ begin to appear on Earth. But the only thing that comes out of them are massive hordes of very hostile dinosaurs and even more fun genetically-modified dinosaurs known as ‘neosaurs’. Naturally, this sets off global chaos and destruction.

Enter humanity’s best and last hope. The exofighters, a ragged and rugged bunch of soldiers equipped with specialised mech suits. The suits have been developed by the shady Aibius Corporation. The corporation has also developed ‘Leviathan’, an advanced artificial intelligence designed to ‘assist’ the exofighters.

Affiliate Statement

Framing the War

However, Leviathan seems to have gone rogue and is hosting wargames. These combat tests send exofighters back in time to the good old days of 2040. There they must fight waves of dinosaurs and neosaurs in a hope to get to the bottom of what’s happened to Leviathan and to ultimately save the human race.

It’s a deep tale that is full of twists and turns while holding a solid mystery, but it all falls apart due to the nature of the game being an online multiplayer. Exoprimal‘s tale is delivered in a very disjointed fashion.

Each mission you complete will reward you with new data that you then take to a separate area called the Access Map to unlock the tale.

Botched Delivery

This delivery of exposition is extremely bitsy, as you very slowly reveal the grander plot piecemeal. Although jumping into a match could also show a cut scene that is miles from where you actually are in terms of the tale, so it’s messy at times too.

But thankfully you can forget the tale and just get stuck into the dino slaying. You jump from mission to mission and your party of five will be in the thick of it in no time.

Multi-Slayer

You can play the game in two modes just now – PvP or PvE. These are mostly the same up to the final stage. Taking the form of a race where you have to bag and tag a set number of objectives faster than the other team.

With the final objective seeing the differences between PvP and PvE in that PvP will have both teams fighting in the same areas at the same time, so you can attack them to slow them down, whereas PvE has you just battling AI for the win.

Objectives fall in two main camps – hold and defend or kill, kill and kill. For the most part they are fun, though repetition is an element that can and will set in on some missions as there’s a lack of overall variety.

Suits You, Sir

But the exofighter suits are what keeps things fresh and are the stars of the show. Think Warframes, eh, warframes and you’ll have a fair idea of their. Exoprimal features ten different suits built around three core roles: assault, tank and support.

Each handles differently and each comes with pros and cons. There’s a huge difference across the spectrum of suits. So much so that getting the right balance in the team is often the difference between winning and losing.

For example, Deadeye is your all-round fighter that most will start out with, whereas Vigilant is a sniper class and needs a bit more skill to get the best from it, or you could just go Krieger who is a walking mini-gun or Roadblock who just likes to smash things with his big steel mitts.

C-C-C-Combo Maker

Additionally, you can also pull off interesting combos based on the each unique ability; like ice blasts or time wells. So playing around to get that right mix can take time. Although you can swap and change suits as you see fit during a mission, which is a nice touch as you’re not locked in and can adapt over the fight.

As you complete missions you’ll earn bitcoins that you can use to buy new perks and upgrades for your suits. And these unlockables really do alter the character’s effectiveness. For example, Deadeye has a perk that lets him reload when he rolls which saves a lot of time.

The only issue is that a lot of the good upgrades aren’t available until you have put the time in levelling your suit. And by then the campaign is all but over.

Dominator

If the battle has turned decisively in favour of your opponent, will be granted one Dominator per game. This is a unique pick-up that lets you summon and control a large dinosaur with which you can make a mess in your opponent’s game.

It’s a fun feature but, depending on the member of the team that takes it, it can often impact you as well. During my time with the game, the squad’s healer grabbed it thinking they are some hot shot. And this left us without a vital medic until they were hacked down by our opponents.

Style Supreme

Visually, Exoprimal looks very nice indeed. And that’s even before the sky opens up and starts throwing thousands of raptors at you, and things go up a gear. Also, the style of the dinos is amazing. Each and every one looks the part, especially the twisted fantasy-inspired neosaurs.

The sound ofExoprimal is very good but can also be a bit grinding at time. The game constantly is giving you audio updates during the match. You are faster, you are slower, here’s a fact about this area.

There are times when you just want the game to shut up and let you fight. Same goes for the story; it’s well written but let down by the forced buddy banter.

Not All Cupcakes and Dinos

Beyond that the biggest issue I had was the menus which feel like a lift from a PC build. It’s cursor driven so you have to slowly move it around the screen to navigate, which is a pain.

Games as a service examples dinosaurs monsters PvP PvE

Also, after you complete the campaign you unlock a horde mode called Savage Gauntlet. But at the time of writing this mode isn’t available unfortunately, meaning all you can do is re-play past missions.

Exoprimal is a live service and this, of course means it will evolve over time. (Ed: hey, ‘member Evolve?) What is available just now is fun and enjoyable but bogged down by repetition and a few odd design choices. Stuff that we hope will be ironed out in future updates.