Exoprimal Review – Trojan Rex

My eyes widen with disbelief when a huge portal suddenly appears above a city block. This portal sends down hundreds of raptors from the skies, which tumbled buildings and then ran towards us. It’s a jaw-dropping sight, but that awe turns to intimidation at the staggering number of adversaries thirsty for our blood. As our tank units charge forward, they activate shields and create a wall of defense. The healer refills the health bar to its brim. On a high perch, a sniper points his weapon. All the while, my finger rests on the trigger of my grenade launcher, waiting to see the whites of my scaly enemies’ eyes before unleashing hell. 

I’ve experienced this tense situation dozens of times in Exoprimal’s cooperative wargames. Capcom weaves an absurd story using a hero 5v5 shooter. It involves dinosaurs, alternate realities, time-travel, time loops and artificial intelligence. The game appears as a multiplayer class shooter, but it’s actually a ruse to get a crazy single-player adventure. Your mileage will vary depending on what you’re here for, but this novel approach creates one of the most surprisingly enjoyable titles of the year. 

Exoprimal’s premise drew me in for its sheer silliness. Earth will be plagued with mysterious dinosaur outbreaks by 2043. Mega-corporation Aibius’ answer is training pilots to use high-tech Exosuits (basically suped-up Iron Man suits) to fight back. A small ragtag team of these pilots crashlands over a ruined island that Aibius’ sentient A.I., Leviathan, has overtaken. The machine is stuck in an eternal time loop. For some reason it has trapped the entire island, reliving a tragic day that happened three years earlier and summoning exofighters in parallel realities who engage in battles with dinosaurs. 

As the plot unfolds, it becomes more and more complicated and bizarre. I’m a sucker for over-the-top nonsense, and the narrative manages to be on the entertaining side of that spectrum. The new cutscenes were more exciting than gaining a cosmetic skin, or a weapon. The way the story was told is what I find most impressive. The Analysis Map is a flowchart that shows new moments in the story as you complete matches. This beat, which can be cinematics, audiologs, or long exposition dumps all lead to the end. You get closer to the solution of the main mysteries as you continue playing. It’s a neat approach to storytelling in a purely multiplayer title, and, as a more casual multiplayer fan, it effectively hooked me into playing longer than I normally would in similar titles.  

Exoprimal appears to be a well-known product. The game pits two teams of five against each other, with exosuits categorized by assault, support and tank. Some of my favorites were the quick, melee focused Zepher; the heavy, samurai like Murasame and the electric healer Witchdoctor. While not all the classes fit my playing style, they are still enjoyable because of how smooth and fluid their gameplay is. The action is smooth and fluid, whether you are slicing or shooting your enemies. This performance doesn’t skip a beat even when there are hundreds of opponents on the screen. Wiping out crowds of foes channels the fun power fantasy of Musou titles like Dynasty Warriors. Watching dozens dinosaurs of all sizes and species from velociraptors up to giants like triceratops or t.rex swarm the field is always cool. 

In each match, players are challenged to complete three random rounds of objectives quicker than their opponent. It could be killing certain amounts of dinosaurs, protecting checkpoints or escorting payloads. I enjoyed the tense, tug-of-war style race that matches become, as it’s often anyone’s game, even if you’re lagging the entire match. The final round is the only one that puts you in direct contact with the other team, letting you sabotage each other’s progress during the final push. The best way to accomplish this is by activating a Dominator. This single-use power up transforms one person into a rampaging dino that can rip the other team apart. I loved using this, as I felt like a bear invading a bee’s nest; I’ll get stung, but not before tearing apart as many players as possible so my team can catch up or maintain our lead.

Exoprimal has only a single gameplay location, but as the narrative progresses, there are more levels, dinosaurs and objectives. The new levels and dinosaurs help contextualize the game’s inherently repetitive gameplay loop. It’s also nice that there are story-based mission sometimes. The most thrilling boss fights are raids, where you and your team work together to defeat a monster. These battles are a great change from the standard match. They feature a pool of limited respawns, and multiple rounds with overwhelming numbers of enemies.

If you’re a multiplayer diehard, Exoprimal is nowhere near as robust as comparable titles like Overwatch or Apex Legends. Though it features familiar trappings like free and paid battle passes, individual class progression, and decently customizable load-outs, there’s nothing else besides playing a wargame. There are no other permanent modes, ranked options, clans, or leaderboards, so if the story isn’t the hook, you may find it shallow. 

The story is what makes Exoprimal appealing to me and other casual players. It truly feels like a solo adventure played alongside strangers, as it’s largely PvE, and you’re ultimately in a loop of completing missions and watching cutscenes until you reach the big finale. However, you have to play a ton of matches to finish the story (almost 60 for me), and they’re long and involved enough to make repeated runs tiresome after a few consecutive rounds. Exoprimal is best played in small doses by story-driven players to prevent burnout. However, this means that they will have to wait a while to find out how the wacky tale ends. 

Capcom wants to get its cake AND eat it with Exoprimal. It uses its storyline to attract more fans, while also hoping that the loop will keep hardcore multi-player fans around for the long run. I’m not sure that will work; I have little motivation to return now that I’ve seen credits. It was fun while it lasted. Exoprimal’s creative subversion of expectations impressed me in more ways than one, and its approach to telling a robust narrative within a multiplayer framework is an example I hope other titles study. I just hope it’s enough to keep the game from going extinct.