When I first saw Exoprimal and caught a glimpse of its dinosaur-killing action, I was fascinated by it. I never thought it would blow my mind, or even keep me hooked for hours, but I thought it looked like fun, like killing hordes of aliens every now and then in Aliens: Fireteam Elite. However, that impression changed a lot when I realized that Exorpimal was actually a team-to-team multiplayer game, because it made me worry about what the game really wanted to be. Jumping to now, I had a chance to check out a snippet of Exoprimal as part of a recent closed-net test, and I have various thoughts on it.
First, I want to make it fundamentally clear that on PC, Exoprimal plays really well. I feel like I should mention this right away because in some cases there are thousands of dinosaurs on screen at once, but the game still plays smoothly and the shooting system feels smooth. However, just because the game is playing well doesn’t necessarily mean I’m drawn to the concept.
That’s because the idea of Exoprimal (in the Dinosaur Survival mode that can be viewed) is to compete with another team to complete a predetermined batch of objectives as quickly as possible. Since the game is about killing dinosaurs, this pretty much revolves around shooting giant carnivorous lizards in the face, but there’s a degree of uniqueness to this, as sometimes the goal might just be to deter an invasion by a swarm of raptors, and other times it might ask you to Take down a stronger Triceratops or Ankylosaurus. No matter what the goal is, you must complete the task at hand as a unit while doing it faster than the opposing team.
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This brings me to an immediate question that I noticed inside Exoprimal, the class system.Multiplayer game with classes defined by damage, tanks and support always There’s an issue where people don’t want to play with anything other than damage. That means you’re either forced to play one of those roles yourself, or be part of a team that lacks healing or frontline presence, which is pretty much the nail in the coffin, especially during rounds where opposing teams touch each other and the vicious dinosaur becomes you The least problematic. Some games have addressed this issue with the queuing system, meaning you’re locked into one of the class types, but Exoprimal gives you the option to change outfits at any time (each outfit is tied to a specific class and does a specific things), which means a good and balanced team can change its head in an instant.
It should be said that in this web test, only five coats were available, which means that impression is slightly skewed, as there are three damage suits, one tank and one support suit to try out, although the game shows that this is not the case. But either way, it’s hard to see the system as an immediate bad omen for online multiplayer team play.
Before leaving this topic, I’d like to add that different outerwear often feel interesting, each with their own benefits and design style, highlighting the suits themselves as a personality, not necessarily the player/pilot who operates them, in It’s almost like a hero shooter in some ways. I mean, while each suit has unique abilities and weapons, the suits themselves seem to communicate in different ways, even if your pilot hasn’t changed. For example, the Support Witch Doctor is rather eccentric and outlandish, while the Tank Barricade is more stern and sophisticated.
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But back to the gameplay, after a few games in Exoprimal, another of my biggest concerns stood out. That said, anyone who specifically requests this type of game will probably be satisfied, but most other players will probably find themselves a little bored after a few hours. I’m sure Capcom already has a lot of lineups to mitigate this, but if the devs really want to keep players busy for hours on end by just firing a rifle into a mass of dinosaur carcasses, they’ll probably have another one things happen.
Also, since this is an online multiplayer game, I find myself having more questions about the story than answers, since the game starts out simply telling you that a dinosaur invasion is happening and that you, a coat pilot, are being assigned to A team to fight them. How the Dinosaur Invasion happened, and why the teams competed against each other, is never really explained, but suggests this is more of a bloodsport-type deal than a planetary defense program.
Also, sometimes the game ditches its PvP aspect and multi-objective design entirely in favor of bringing two teams together against a very formidable foe. As part of this system, I’m up against a Neo-Rex, which basically means a 10-player lobby teamed up to take out this very tanky opponent in a predetermined amount of time, and didn’t die as a team for more than 30 times. It’s an interesting change, but it completely removes the way for either team to beat the other, which is very unusual for a PvP game and makes me further question what Exoprimal really wants to be. This is highlighted by the occasional ability where players can control a powerful dinosaur like the Tyrannosaurus Rex to wreak havoc. For a game about killing dinosaurs with very advanced and cool outfits, that’s a bit out of place for me, and unnecessary.
I’m not saying Exoprimal is a bad game in any sense, in fact it was pretty fun in the hours I played it. But there are so many similar Horde-like games out there today — all of which launch well but seem to just fade into the background — and I can’t help but think Exoprimal is battling for a similar fate. Hopefully the extra game modes and more sets will change my mind about this.