Developer – Capcom

Publisher – Capcom

Platforms – Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, Playstation 4, PlayStation 5 (Reviewed), PC

Review copy given by publisher

In the not so distant future of 2040, dinosaurs are breaking through the space time continuum and wreaking havoc on humanity. Thankfully a highly advanced AI named Leviathan is able to detect future outbreaks and deploy sophisticated and powerful combat mech suits onto the field to turn the tide on the swarms of ancient reptilians. This is the bonkers premise of Capcom’s newest team based third person shooter called Exoprimal that features some intense over the top action. Sorry, this isn’t the Dino Crisis remake that fans have been hoping for. There’s no doubt that Capcom has been on a hot streak lately, pumping out banger after banger, with Monster Hunter Rise, Resident Evil 4 remake, and Street Fighter 6, but I’m not so sure here with Exoprimal, as it’s a bit of a mixed bag.

You start off the game with a character customizer and a brief tutorial teaching you the basics of combat and movement. You are the newest recruit in a group of Exosuit fighters, tasked to investigate the next dino anomaly. However, it turns out the previously mentioned AI Leviathan has turned rogue and is pulling Exosuit fighters from alternate dimensions together on a remote island to conduct endless dino fighting experiments for data gathering purposes. And guess what, you’re the one being pulled into all these wargames, how exciting!

It seems there is only one main game mode at launch, titled Dino Survival, so expect to cycle through the same sub-missions over and over again when you play. These range from mowing down hordes of lesser dinosaurs and taking down a gigantic tyrannosaurus rex to escorting a payload and competing with other players directly on a common objective. Yep, you heard that last part right: Exoprimal is a PVE and PVP game that has two teams of 5 players pitted against each other. Think of it as sort of like Overwatch, but with dinosaurs and more PVE than PVP. It sucks that many of the objectives are uninspired and boil down to kill X number of dinosaurs or defend for Y minutes.

On the other hand, the map variety is also quite limited, with a few new ones unlocking as you progress, but you’ll be playing the same map over and over again in the beginning. The same goes for enemy types, because there’s simply not enough variety.

While not strictly a competitive game, Exoprimal does provide hints throughout a match to get you to pick up the pace. An AI orb that directs you where to go in a mission constantly reminds you of whether or not your team is completing objectives faster or slower than the enemy team. A glowing red ghost of the enemy players is also visible to you so that you can get a sense of what their progression is. Once per match the AI orb will reward your team with a Dominator, which is a single-use item that allows you to spawn as a gigantic dinosaur to mess with the enemy team. It can be quite fun to try and break up the rhythm and pace of your opponents, but it does very little in the grand scheme of the overall repetitive nature of the gameplay loop. There are some spurts of pure PVP too, depending on the RNG of the final sub-mission you roll, which can get quite hectic and chaotic.

In its current state, Exoprimal is severely lacking in content, especially when considering it’s a full price triple A experience. The game is an online-only experience and only features multiplayer gameplay. Those looking for a solo-play mode will surely be disappointed because there isn’t one and no future plans for one. What’s even worse is that the game launched with tons of microtransactions and even a premium battle pass tier. Being a live service game, it is nice to know that Capcom plans to support this game for years to come, with a roadmap of future updates already announced. Players can expect more game modes, new maps, exosuit variants, and deadlier dinosaurs in addition to collaborations with other Capcom games in the near future. The inclusion of Exoprimal on Xbox Game Pass should help the game gain some traction, especially because an experience of this genre requires a consistent player base to survive.

So how does progression work? You earn experience in your player rank, battle pass level, and suit rank. Leveling up on all the aforementioned categories rewards you with in-game currency known as BikCoins, war chests that contain cosmetic items and skins, new emotes, suit modules, and even exosuits. BikCoins are required to purchase modules and rigs that are attached to each suit. Every suit and weapon can be customized with different skins, decals, and charms. Rigs are an extra tool that can be equipped, and range from a long range cannon to a healing pod. You don’t gain a ton of experience per match and trying to unlock everything can get increasingly grindy and repetitive. The game also weirdly entices you to choose the “Random” final mission option which rewards you with bonus experience, instead of choosing a solely PVP or PVE option.

Like all other Capcom titles, Exoprimal is extremely well optimized on PlayStation 5 and performs flawlessly. The game runs at a buttery smooth 60 frames per second with high quality shadows, reflections, and detailed draw distances. The Reach For The Moon Engine never fails to amaze me with its impressive rendering capabilities. Even with hordes of dinosaurs on the screen, performance never took a dip. Load times are quite fast but might take longer depending on your internet connection and matchmaking latencies. You are required to create a Capcom ID in order to play this game. Thankfully there is cross platform play, but there is a caveat. The limitation is that you can only pre-make parties on the same platform, meaning you cannot team up with a friend on PC if you are playing on PS5, but you can potentially get matched with them randomly in a mission.

The narrative campaign is disappointingly menial, because there practically is none. You progress the story via earning additional cutscenes by playing regular multiplayer matches. There is no single player mode. The sprinkles of pre-rendered cutscenes are well put together with decent enough voice acting to compare it to the likes of a B movie. Unfortunately many of the earned story progression is told through lazily put together static images with voiceovers instead of fully animated sequences.

There are a handful of additional gripes pertaining to the overall experience. First off, the user interface is a mess, filled with hard to read text, cryptic symbols, and a cursor that must be moved with the analog stick in order to interact with menu elements. Console games should not need a mouse pointer to navigate the UI. Moving onto actual gameplay, every single match starts off with the same annoyingly slow rambling introduction from the AI Leviathan, and this can’t be skipped. When it comes to accessibility options, there’s close to none, which is a disappointment. There is a setting for aim assist scaling but from my experience, it doesn’t do anything as you still need to aim 100% manually with the joystick.

What Capcom has done an outstanding job on is how shockingly smooth exosuits feel when you play in one. What’s even cooler is that you can change between suits on the fly, allowing you to change things up. The guns fire crisply and give great feedback while all the suit abilities feel fluid and flashy. At launch, Exoprimal features a whopping 10 mech suits to choose from: 4 in the assault class, 3 in the tank class, and 3 in the support class. You start off with the user friendly Deadeye class that excels at medium and long distance combat, but can switch on the fly mid-battle into the heavy tank suit Krieger which wields an infinite ammo minigun, or the highly mobile support suit Skywave that can fly in the air. It’s safe to say that all the suits are fun to play with and each feel uniquely distinct from one another. The development team definitely has the core gameplay concept down, there’s no doubt about that.

At the end of the day, Exoprimal is a competent team based dinosaur shooting PVEVP experience that’s just plain dumb fun, and that’s okay. There’s no reason not to give it a try if you are already a subscriber of Xbox Game Pass, but I’d hold off for a sale if you aren’t. It’s the type of game that you and your buddies can hop on one afternoon for a few hours of enjoyment without thinking too much. There’s a solid foundation here with some great gunplay and class design, but the development team needs to add more content if they want this game to survive in the long term. There simply isn’t enough variety in terms of game modes, maps, and dinosaur types at launch.