We all have weaknesses that are exploited to make us like video games despite our obvious flaws. It turns out that one of mine had seen 100 raptors fall out of an empty portal and machine-gun. Do you think that makes Exoprimal an educational video game?
Exoprimal is a very strange game, but somehow the dinosaurs falling from the sky are the most normal. The story seems to be heading towards a Jurassic Park setting, with a team of Special Forces men heading to an island that has suffered some kind of disaster. But instead of landing to find and kill a herd of dinosaurs, first go through a rogue AI-controlled extradimensional time portal to him, and then, in a Hunger Games-style contest, find yourself and him in another world. of AI. amusement. That’s where dinosaur killers come in.
I respect that diversion because it’s a needless twist on what should have been the perfect premise of going to an island and shooting lots of dinosaurs. The exosuit is Capcom’s take on Japanese tokusatsu series like Power Rangers, and it’s simultaneously cheesy, flashy, and badass. It’s more varied than I expected, divided into assault, support, and tank classes.
Exoprimal is primarily aimed at co-op, so you’ll experience the story in cutscenes that are a little awkwardly packed between multiplayer matches. These matches are still weird. The first 2/3rds of each match is just blasting dinosaurs in co-op, but the final 1/3rd of the match is a sort of Overwatch match against a competing team. A goal styled like pushing a payload. Similar to Overwatch, this has become a key part of my team’s strategy as you can switch suits at any time. Start off with all your might to kill the dinos as quickly as possible, then bring in tanks and healers for PvP.
Exoprimal doesn’t really fit into any of the usual boxes for multiplayer games, but I think it’s a smart move on Capcom’s part. Playing with friends increases co-op cohesiveness, and finally playing against another team gives you a little adrenaline.
However, the competition to reach co-op objectives for most of the match feels strangely isolating. Each time you kill a wave of attacking dinos, the AI will tell you if it’s faster or slower than the rest of the human team. I feel like I have no other way to react to this information than feeling a little smug or panicking that other teams will have a time advantage when we reach the finals. Perhaps Exo Primal was putting surprises on the back burner, but there needs to be some way to influence the opposing team in the first part of the game – a portal that can transcend Tyrannosaurus and grieve the opposing team. Give me some cancer or something.
These parts of Exoprimal are unconventional, but the meta progression is diametrically opposed. This is pulled directly from popular F2P game handbooks, including loot boxes containing cosmetic drops and battle passes. This isn’t great for a $60 game, and it doesn’t reconcile with how people spend money on games now, and how strange his Exoprimal is otherwise (I say that with affection). I feel like I haven’t.
I also wonder if Capcom’s recent announcement that players can choose to queue for PvP matches only or PvE matches only will soften the impact of that unconventional structure. But I think it’s for the best. The co-op fun of shooting 73 dinosaurs per minute is far from what you’d expect from a balanced, competitive shooter. Exoprimal is probably poised to deliver the former.
Stripped of the conventional monetization, Exoprimal would look like a game born during Capcom’s heyday of experimentation in the early 2000s. I’m not sure this weird mix of PvE and PvP will appeal to most players, but throwing grenades into a pile of dinosaurs is a really fun time, at least for a few hours.
Exoprimal releases on Steam and Game Pass on July 14th.