‘Exoprimal’ assessment: an satisfying shooter with an identification disaster

“this is footage of final week’s main dinosaur outbreak,” reads a information anchor in Exoprimal, as a video reveals a whole lot of raptors raining from the sky. There’s no smirk, or a lot as a wink, to acknowledge the absurdity of the state of affairs. It’s all a part of the ridiculous appeal of Capcom‘s multiplayer third-person shooter, the place portals spew dinosaurs into near-futuristic cities and exo-suited troopers battle to comprise them.

Generally known as exofighters, these troopers are compelled to compete towards one another in life-or-death wargames, the place two groups of 5 gamers face off to kill dinosaurs and full aims sooner than their rivals. Every match takes round 20-25 minutes to finish, and largely boils right down to killing prehistoric baddies with every exofighter’s distinctive set of talents.

As a aggressive recreation, victory comes right down to ending your missions sooner than the opposite crew. These duties vary from merely slaughtering dinosaurs to pushing your goal to the end line sooner than your opponents, although each groups are stored separate for the primary half of every match. Within the second half, gamers are given extra hands-on alternatives for sabotaging their rivals — be it partaking them in a shootout, or wreaking havoc as a mind-controlled dinosaur.

If all of it sounds a bit bizarre, that’s as a result of it’s. An odd mix of participant versus participant (PvP) video games and team-based PvE shooters, the early hours of Exoprimal really feel trapped between concepts. The primary dinosaurs thrown at you might be too repetitive to really feel as partaking as a wave-based shooter like Left 4 Useless, however spending half of a match not interacting along with your rival exofighters implies that Exoprimal loses some punch as a aggressive PvP recreation. It takes a while to heat as much as — although when you do, there’s simple enjoyable to be present in racing to kill dinosaurs, or taking management of a T-Rex to snack in your opponents.

Likewise, Exoprimal‘s roster of dinosaurs begins fairly conservatively. Raptors are quite a few but straightforward to kill, whereas a lone Ankylosaurus can take in a whole lot of bullets due to its armoured scales. As the sport goes on, extra of those distinctive dinosaurs come out to play: a T-Rex can slaughter an unprepared crew in a fashion of seconds, whereas the less-chompy Stegosaurus is able to disabling close by exofighters’ distinctive talents. Sadly, Exoprimal doesn’t fairly go far sufficient in giving these dinosaurs sufficient identification, and most of them simply really feel like scaly bullet sponges.

Even then, it’s arduous to cease from being a enjoyable premise. Whenever you familiarize yourself with the format of Exoprimal, it’s a blast — particularly when you’re taking part in with a full crew of 5 gamers, as we did for this assessment. There are three sub-classes of exosuits (Assault, Tank, Help) and every comes with their distinctive set of talents. Our personal favorite was Murasame, a katana-wielding tank that dices up dinosaurs on the frontline, however there’s sufficient variation between exosuits to really feel like there’s an possibility for everybody.

As for why these exofighters are being pitted towards one another, the world has Leviathan to thank. A rogue AI with the ability to meddle in alternate dimensions, Leviathan has taken to plucking exofighters from alternate dimensions and sending them again in time to the onset of the dinosaur invasion, the place they’re compelled to partake in countless “wargames” so Leviathan can collect information from their efficiency. After crash-landing into Leviathan’s clutches, protagonist Ace and their misfit assist crew start searching for a approach to escape, all whereas surviving the AI’s fixed fight trials.

This story performs out via post-match cutscenes and the occasional “glitched” mission, whereas a database display screen of Exoprimal‘s overarching mysteries is slowly fleshed out as extra matches are accomplished. Although the narrative is drip-fed, there are sufficient hooks to maintain it compelling — like looking for out why dinosaurs have change into a climate phenomenon, what made Leviathan go off the deep finish, and who’s murdering exofighters outdoors of their information trials.

Nevertheless, doing something outdoors of those action-packed battles can really feel like a chore. Leviathan is a largely boring, repetitive villain: in matches, he repeats the identical few traces verbatim, dutifully telling you whether or not you’re beating your opponent or lagging behind, whereas he gives a tedious introduction to each single recreation that makes getting right into a match really feel painfully gradual. Elsewhere, Exoprimal‘s menus are mired in microtransactions and clunky person interface selections that makes discovering essential data, like every exofighter’s talents, a nightmare. If this was a free-to-play recreation, the heavy-handed monetisation could possibly be missed — however as a substitute, it feels a tad overbearing provided that gamers have already forked out £50.

In the end, Exoprimal can generally really feel too costly for what Capcom’s providing. Blasting away at dinosaurs is undeniably good enjoyable, however there are solely so many occasions you may full the identical restricted slew of aims, or hear Leviathan’s unchanging voice traces, earlier than the entire thing begins to really feel tedious.

That being mentioned, the subsequent few seasons of Exoprimal are trying busy. There are crossovers with Avenue Fighter and Monster Hunter to look ahead to, whereas new maps, missions and exosuits are additionally on the best way. With a couple of months of updates, Exoprimal could possibly be a wholly completely different beast — however for now, it’s a rousing but barely prehistoric shooter that’s greatest performed with friends.

Exoprimal is out there on PC, PlayStation, and Xbox. We reviewed it on PC.