In this Exoprimal Review, we’ll be taking a look at CAPCOM’s new third-person cooperative shooter. What makes it unique compared to other shooters? What is the gameplay? Why are there dinosaurs involved? And is it even worth it? I’ll be answering these and covering more. If you’re loving our reviews, check out more here.

Story & Setting

The year is 2040 on Earth. Interdimensional rifts that are known as “Vortexes” appear on the planet. What comes out of these are hordes of dangerous dinosaurs and genetically modified reptiles called  “Neosaurs”. This event leads to global destruction. Humanity tries to fight back by deploying soldiers equipped with Exosuits manufactured by the Aibius Corporation. In conjunction with Exofighters out in the field, Aibius also developed an advanced AI called “Leviathan”. The AI assists these soldiers with their operations, fighting against Dinosaurs. Also tackling other threats who try to seek Aibius’ creations for their own.

Jumping to the present timeline, the year is 2043 and you play as Ace, a rookie Exofighter. This is a customizable character part of the patrol squad, the Hammerheads. Made up of members: Lorenzo, Alders, Majesty, and Sandy, an android assistant of the team. As the crew sets out on a patrol mission, they are intercepted by a vortex causing their ship to crash on Biktoa Island. Ace meets a Leviathan who seemingly has gone rogue. As confusion sparks, Ace is funneled back in time to a specific date in 2040. Here they learn about Leviathan hosting these “wargames” and meets a veteran Exofighter and participant of the event, Magnum.

Into the Wargames

As players progress, they are forced to participate and survive in the “wargames” that consist of different combat circumstances. They involve fighting hordes of dinosaurs and neosaurs that appear from vortexes controlled by the Leviathan itself. With the support of Magnum and Ace’s team, your goal is to survive the wargames while uncovering the truth behind Leviathan’s secrets and agenda. Ultimately to get off the mysterious island.

The storyline of the game and the mechanics of how to progress are not exactly Exoprimal’s strongest suit. At first, even though it felt gimmicky, I was still drawn in because I wanted to find out what would happen next. Ultimately wanting to uncover why these events were happening. However, after learning that I needed to keep playing matches in Dino Survival, my interest slowly started to fade away since its forceful, repetitive gameplay of slaying dinos slowly crept up on me.

Bumpy Beginnings

Either way I gave it a shot and as I reached pivotal moments of the game, it just wasn’t quite enough to reel me in. I had to continuously slog through its slow paced and clumsy cutscenes that I personally think didn’t really need to be there. If I wasn’t progressing the story, I was left with gathering pieces of lost intel that can be found on the Analysis Map. This ended up worsening my experience, because it left me confused on how to even manage it at the start.

The story of Mech Suits fighting Dinosaurs and solving the mystery of vortexes together with a rogue AI is quite a bold idea. Furthermore, might I even say quite unique in video games. However, it’s such a shame that Exoprimal loses its momentum and fails to entice players just because of its poor execution in progression.

Talking about the Setting of Exoprimal, I can’t say that it’s groundbreakingly original since the areas you play in Dino Survival mode are unexplorable. They also looked almost identical, and are pretty much objective-driven. This meant needing to head to Point A, defeat dinosaurs, head to Point B, slay more of these dinos. Rinse and repeat until you reach the end of the linear map, followed by completing the final face-off mission.

Character Development

As for character development, despite some missteps in dialogue and cutscenes, I was still somehow able to empathize with how Ace’s team struggles to survive. It was a delight to see how each member of the Hammerheads shine and flourish in their own way. It’s not as emotional or immersive I would say, but at least it was still able to translate into some sort of a reaction.

Gameplay

Wargames: Dino Survival

Exoprimal, currently only features one game mode called Dino Survival. A road map is planned for the next seasons to come, CAPCOM plans to release other game modes as well. There is no single-player mode that focuses purely on the story element of the game. Instead you are given a 2-for-1 mode that forces the player to jump into the PvE-slash-PvP system while progressing the story which leaves a concern that it can easily exhaust players with its repetitive gameplay.

When you jump into Dino Survival, two teams that consist of five players race against each other to complete different objectives. Ultimately ending in a showdown between the two groups, and whoever finishes first has the upper hand such as acquiring a Dominator that lets you summon and control one of the large dinosaurs. Dino Survival’s objectives, if I’m being honest, reminds me of some of Overwatch 2’s game modes such as capturing the point, deathmatch, and escorting a payload. The only difference is, throughout the course of the objectives, both teams need to make an effort to finish first just like in a race. In the middle of the segmented objectives, players can freely switch their Exosuits as they see fit.

Upon reaching the final mission, both teams will appear on the same map where they will need to complete the last task while fending off dinosaurs and fighting against each other. And yes, it is only during the final mission, when you reach the end of the map that both teams clash. By completing the final mission, regardless of winning or losing, you can receive in-game rewards, various experience points, lore intel, and story progression.

Lack of Single-Player Mode

At first, experiencing Dino Survival was fun and it felt exciting due to the fact that dinosaurs are involved and the idea of the game intrigued me. Combat without a doubt was fluid and fast-paced as I tried the different classes of Exosuits. This is not a surprise coming from CAPCOM, where they excel in delivering a great experiences when it comes to shooting, melee attacks, and movements.

However, at some point, it felt like a repetitive objective since there was no other choice but to participate in the said game mode. All I wanted was to progress the story faster and hoped to play in a Single-Player mode. This was such a bummer because currently, it doesn’t have anything else to offer but Dino Survival.

It’s a Team Game

When it came to playing with random players, just like any other team-based shooters, your experience with playing Exoprimal depends on how knowledgeable and skilled your teammates are when playing. And I’m going to be frank here, I was not having a great time playing with randoms especially if we weren’t working as a unit, it came to a point that it felt frustrated because we’d lose the match. I’d end up having to repeat the map only hoping that for the next matchmaking, I’d be in a decent group.

On the other hand, my initial negative experience was somehow alleviated the moment I got the chance to play with my friends, since there was proper communication and it was fun to think of different team compositions to win. I found playing with friend much more rewarding in this sense.

Apart from that, there is no form of looting and exploration which is a missed mark. I personally could see potential in this game if only it had introduced us to at least some variety of game modes and more features in its launch.

Exosuits

Exosuits are the different powered suits used to fight against enemies and these are divided into three classes or roles: Assault, Tank, and Support. Assault Exosuits are the main damage dealers that vary from close, medium, or long-range. They are fully equipped with abilities and weaponry that focus on combat. Tank Exosuits specialize in protecting their allies by absorbing damage and drawing enemy attacks. They are the team’s first line of defense, rigged with a defensive arsenal such as shields, and usually have a high HP. Finally, Support Exosuits are experts in using healing and debuffing or buffing abilities to ensure survivability and improve the combat effectiveness of the team.

Each Exosuit is unique in its own way when it comes to design and combat. I was quite excited to witness the differences of each and experience how effective or ineffective they are in a team compositions. For example, it is recommended to either have 3 Assault, 1 Tank, and 1 Support. Or 2 Assaults, 1 Tank, 1 Primary Healer, and 1 Buffing or Debuffing Support. Although I’ve countlessly mentioned how repetitive gameplay can be, Exoprimal actually shines in presenting a well-realized line-up of different Exosuits you can play and it invites players to be creative with forming an effective unit, that is strong enough to win matches.

Exosuit Customization

With that being said, even with having a diverse selection of Exosuits that consist of different gameplay and design. Exoprimal falls short when it comes to customization. It does not offer a variety of customization and has very little when it comes to creating builds for your Exosuit. This feels just like another missed opportunity. When it comes to altering an Exosuit, players can only modify the following:

• Rigs are secondary equipment that grants an extra ability such as firing a laser beam, deploying a small repair field, and more. These are only limited to equipping one Rig per Exosuit.
• Modules of up to three are passive chips slotted to an Exosuit to refine its overall effectiveness in combat such as adding a movement speed burst, increased durability, faster reload, as well as enhancing the performance of some of the Exosuit’s unique abilities. These are unlocked and its level can be improved by spending BikCoins, provided that the Exosuit level has reached its requirement.
• Finally, cosmetic customizations where players can change the outfit of the pilot. This includes the Exosuit’s weapon and actual suit by modifying its skins, as well as equipping different emotes and stamps of the personalized communication wheel.

For a team-based shooter game, there are some interesting and unique features, but to be honest, there’s not much really going on beyond that. Despite the lack of customization that I was looking for, CAPCOM at least holds its own when it comes to gameplay, design, mechanics, and combat fluidity of the Exosuits.

Audio & Visuals

Let’s talk about the Sound and Visuals of Exoprimal. As much as I wanted to observe the design of the maps in Dino Survival, it wasn’t enough time for me to place my judgment since the game would either kick me for being inactive or I would be teleported near my team if I strayed to far away. In Dino Survival matches, players are pretty much distracted by hordes of dinosaurs while focusing on the objectives. With that being said, whenever I was rewarded with cutscenes the rendition of the characters and surroundings of Exoprimal had plenty of attention to detail.

You don’t really get to see a variety of locations here since you’re trapped on the island where you’ll only find Ace upon the crew ship, the space of augmented reality, and currently, the few maps you’ll play in Dino Survival. But visually, the overall background is pleasing to the eye even with dinosaurs running at you, colors pop when looking at vegetation growing around structures, and the effects of abilities are not distracting or flashy.

What stood out to me is the performance captured of the characters which I personally think Capcom perfects since their technology is some of the best out there. The facial expressions and voice-overs of the actors did a great job of portraying the emotions that were portrayed well.

Sound

When it comes to Sound, I was sometimes confused as to why the use of sci-fi metal music was intermittent. Appearing in some moments while not in others. The rest of the the music that was produced seemed rather forgetable. This didn’t really help my immersion since it was mostly combined with clumsy cutscenes and it easily pulled me out of the fantasy. However, when it came to moments of the game where danger was imminent or when you are battling and hearing the screeching sound of a dinosaur, its tone felt right getting your heart pounding and adrenaline rushing.

Performance

As far as the Performance of the game, during the time of this review, I played Exoprimal on the PS5 and there were no issues when it came to lag or frame drops. Loading transitions of the game were almost non-existent. Howevere there were a few instances where it would take about a minute or two for the loading screen after matchmaking in Dino Survival. Exoprimal is equipped with cross-play, so queue times are fast and the longest I’ve waited for matchmaking was about 2 minutes, which is not bad.

Replayability & Pricepoint

Talking about Replayability, I honestly think it’s not looking great at this point. Currently, it only offers Dino Survival mode, and with the next seasons to come, new game modes, variations of Exosuits, Maps, new dinos, and collaborations will make their way to the game. But I foresee that it’s not enough to retain a large volume of players in the long run.

If it’s your first time trying out Exoprimal, it’s definitely is a breath of fresh air in terms of experience, and there are tons of fun times ahead simply because you’re about to fight dinos. Also, with enough matches, the game does at least throw some unexpected features at you like stronger dinos and new objectives.

These are great but the core of Exoprimal is team composition. If you are someone who plays solo you’ll easily get burned out and frustrated if you’re unlucky to be teaming up with inexperienced or stubborn players. So if you really do want to give Exoprimal a shot, I highly recommend that you introduce the game to your friends and influence them to play it with you because the experience of playing Exoprimal shines bright when you are playing with people you know or simply can communicate with.

Pricing

The standard edition of Exoprimal is priced at USD $59.99 while its deluxe edition is at USD $79.99 that includes full access to the Battle Pass and a Head Start kit that unlocks additional Exosuits Vigilant, Murasame, and Nimbus, as well as three Exosuit skins. USD $60.00 is the standard price now for most of the video games out there but I don’t think it’s a justified price because of the underwhelming content it presented at launch, plus a battle pass that offers exclusive skins and cosmetic items.

Despite the price and involvement of cosmetic microtransactions, Exoprimal is not a shooter game that has the element of “pay-to-win”. As for cosmetic items, you don’t really need to buy the Battle Pass unless you want to. Most of the cosmetics that are not BP exclusives, can be easily earned by opening war chests or spending in-game currency, called Bikcoins. These can be acquired through character leveling and by simply completing Dino Survival matches.

Luckily, Exoprimal is available on Game Pass. So if you’re someone who wants to try out the game, you can easily hop right in if already subscribed. On the other hand, if you’re on the PlayStation, try watching gameplay first. Or wait until a new game mode is released. It’s not that far off anyway for new content to drop as its first update and game mode are expected to release on July 28th.

Final Thoughts

Exoprimal is a game that may seem familiar to players who are veterans of other shooter titles. After sharing my concerns on repetitiveness and replayability, behind it all is a bold statement where proper team composition and gameplay shines. This makes the game at least stand on its own two dino feet. If you’re someone who has a solid group that religiously plays online games, then you and your friends will have a good time. However, I anticipate that Exoprimal is a game that for some that will enjoy playing initially and eventually move on which is a shame since the game does have potential. If only it had a structured format and a variety of content upon launch.

It’s definitely is not for everyone as it may divide and leave players confused with its dipsarity of unique elements such as the PvP-PvE system, diverse Exosuit combat mechanics, and credible visuals. Personally, I don’t see myself hopping back into the game anytime soon unless my friends ask, but I can’t avoid the fact that I had some fun with it, which is what matters.

For more gaming reviews check out next Remnant 2 Review and Final Fantasy XVI Review: An Action-Packed Upgrade for a Beloved Franchise.