Exoprimal Review

Player(s): 1
Extra Features: Online (5-10) Multiplayer/Co-op, Leaderboards, Add-On Content

Exoprimal is a 5v5 team-based multiplayer/co-op third-person shooter developed and published by Capcom. The game pits humans in exosuits against hordes of dinosaurs. Two teams fight through waves of dinosaurs to accomplish objectives faster than the enemy team. Honestly, I’m not that big of a fan of online shooters, but this one greatly appeals to me. I really feel Capcom is off to a good start here for what could be a great online franchise similar to Lost Planet (the good Lost Planets).

The year is 2040 and the world has a problem with sudden dinosaur outbreaks. The corporation Aibius develops an AI called “Leviathan” that can predict the location of future outbreaks. Aibius develops cutting edge exosuits and trains humans, known as “exofighters”, to use the exosuits to combat this dinosaur threat. In the year 2043 your team is caught up in a vortex and crash lands on an island in an alternate timeline. You take on the role of “Ace” in the group and must suit up in an exosuit and travel back to 2040 to engage in a rogue Leviathan’s “wargames”. You must engage in combat tests against hordes of dinosaurs to satisfy the Leviathan to keep your team alive and find the secrets behind the Leviathan and its new goals.

Exoprimal has only one main mode and that is “Dino Survival”. Dino Survival pits two teams of five players against each other to see which team can accomplish objectives faster while battling through waves of dinosaurs. The team that can accomplish the objectives the fastest will be declared the winner. Even with this one mode, it’s amazing how addicting this game can get. You start out fighting only the most basic of dinosaurs but the game changes up the dinosaurs as you play more and more. The stages and overall objectives start to change as well. To put it simply, the more you play of this game, the better it gets!

After creating your create-a-character, you get to go through the tutorial and then finally get to choose your exosuit. The exosuits are the main stars of the show in this game. The game has three basic exosuit types (assault, tank and support) and there is a good bit of variation under each type. Each type of exosuit has around three variations. An exosuit’s skills are all mapped to different buttons and have different cooldown times based on the skill used. There is also a custom skill (Rig) that is shared between all exosuits. The customized button can be equipped with a list of different actions. A good bit of exosuit skills (including customizeable) are unlockable with experience points, so you have to play quite a bit to get all skills.

The assault exosuit is your main attacking exosuit. Depending on the type chosen, this suit has an assault rifle, a long-range rifle, a shotgun or a grenade launcher. The tank is equipped with a shield that can do many different actions depending on the type chosen. The tank can hold up the shield to block attack, lay down a shield to block attacks in one area or parry attacks with the shield. There is also a tank type that can attack with a big chain gun. The tank has the highest HP and can lure enemies toward it, so it is highly valuable in fights with big enemies. The support probably has the most variety of the classes. The basic support can create fields of healing, another type can shoot out healing projectiles and another can switch between healing and attacking. Each of these class types are crucial to have on your team.

Players can change suits on the fly. If an assault suit isn’t working out for your team, switch over to a tank or a support type or possibly a different assault suit. Enemies range from your grunt-type raptor enemies to much bigger enemies such as Triceratops and T-rex enemies. The bigger enemies are sort of like mini-bosses. Your team also gets the ability to control a big dinosaur and attack the enemy team in an attempt to slow down their objective progress. The final mission of each run will differ based on the type of mission you choose. Before each run, you can choose to have player vs enemy combat or player vs player combat for the final area or possibly have it random. Other than taking control of a dinosaur and the player vs player option, there is no direct combat with other players on the opposing team. The online aspect is mainly co-op play versus CPU enemies while attempting to accomplish objectives faster than the enemy team.

Every now and then, you’ll go through a single player story mission. These missions sometimes give you CPU team members and at other times, it will give you a few player team members. There are some story missions where you’ll fight a really big exclusive dinosaur boss (Neosaur). Story missions such as these really stand out from the usual gameplay and I sure wish there were more of them. It’s such a shame that this game doesn’t have a true campaign mode where you can play it either by yourself or with a group of players on your team. These story missions appear as you continue to play Dino Survival and get to certain points of the story.

Speaking of story, the overall story to Exoprimal is quite good for a multiplayer game. The story is mainly told through voiced conversations between characters. As you progress through Dino Survival, you’ll unlock data that you can view for extra lore. All collected data is displayed on a grid and as more data is collected, you’ll unlock extra cutscenes that can be viewed. A good majority of the main narrative is optional. You can go through much of the game and not even have to view the majority of the game’s dialogue. The story has good characters and overall good progression. For the type of game it is, it’s quite surprising.

Overall, Exoprimal is quite a solid game even with its one mode. The amount of variety in the exosuits kept me coming back to the game often. The game has a lot of DLC, but all the exosuits can be unlocked by playing the game and leveling up each exosuit to a certain level. The game also has a good bit of free unlockables that you can get from collectible cards (basically a type of loot crate) in game. If Capcom could include a true campaign mode where you could play it solo or with a team of other players, I could see this franchise being just as good as Lost Planet 1 and 2 (mainly Lost Planet 2) in the long run. Definitely give this game a try if you like Capcom online shooters – I have a feeling you’ll like it if you’re willing to give around 5 hours for it to truly show you what it has to offer.

The Good:
+ Tons of variation per suit type
+ Pretty good story for a multiplayer game
+ Overall addicting game

The Bad:
- Only one mode of play (really lacks a true single player/co-op campaign)