Thwarting Extinction
Exoprimal has been treated pretty unfairly. Several internet hate trains gathered steam before the game was ever released. Some were due to the fact that Exoprimal isn’t Dino Crisis. Others because Exoprimal had the audacity to be a multiplayer game that isn’t Fortnight or Call of Duty.
When the game was finally released, the media’s treatment of it was the final straw that finally made me disillusioned with the landscape altogether. I won’t be pointing any fingers. But I definitely read some reviews where it seemed like the reviewer had only played a match or two before making the review.
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Despite all of that, Exoprimal has survived. I’ve still been able to get into a match in less than a minute, and new players seem to be joining all the time. Its survival is thanks to a few key aspects. It had an exceptionally solid launch with no server issues, no game-breaking bugs, and no glaring balance problems.
The fact that it’s crossplay means it has a much larger pool of players to pull from. Plus the fact that it’s on Game Pass means a large population of people can easily hop in and see just how fun Exoprimal is for themselves.
However, there is a big difference between surviving and thriving, and Exoprimal definitely deserves to thrive. Here are five reasons you should be playing it.
Number 1: Low Skill Floor, High Skill Ceiling
Exoprimal is a game that’s very easy to pick up, play and get into. You could hop in as a brand new player and play alongside a team that’s played since launch and still contribute in a meaningful way. All thanks to how Exoprimal is designed.
The Exosuits being divided into roles gives you an immediate idea of what you’re supposed to do, but plenty of games do that. The real key is how each Exosuit is designed within each role. Even going in blind, it’s clear that by stepping into the shoes of the big chunky boy called Roadblock, that you should indeed, be a Roadblock to the dinosaurs.
If you’re a ranged Exosuit on a team with people swinging swords. It’s pretty obvious that shooting down those flying dinosaurs is extremely helpful to your team. While aim and reflexes do matter, a large amount of doing well in Exoprimal revolves around your tactics.
The entire game is built in such a way that teamwork, even with randoms comes almost second nature from the structure built around the game. The Exosuits are incredibly varied. But the baseline of how to play them comes naturally and means that you are rarely a burden to your team as a new player unless you’re intentionally obtuse. This means you can simply hop in and start playing, without feeling left behind.
This is true even with PvP. You may get beaten in straight-out fights for a while. But, you can still contribute to the overall battle by playing your role effectively during those portions and more importantly, the PvE race that comes before them.
At the same time. Exoprimal also has a high skill ceiling that gives you plenty of space to improve at the game as your skill and game knowledge grow. There is a ton of nuance to playing better. Both as a solo player joining randoms and as a group of friends working together. I even made a guide a while back to help get folks started, and I could definitely make several more.
It’s rare for a game to have both a low-skill floor and a high-skill ceiling. Most games with an accessible barrier to entry lack any long-term depth. Meanwhile, most games with a strict barrier to entry alienate all but the most hardcore players. Exoprimal strikes a brilliant balance of being both, easy to play and difficult to master.
Number 2: Technical Excellence
I’ll be the first to tell you that attempting to judge a game on a purely objective basis is a waste of time. Video Games are inherently subjective.
However, there are some metrics that people just love to throw around as being pillars of importance. Exoprimal pretty much aces them all. It’s graphically beautiful with top-notch performance. Despite having numerous dinosaurs on the screen alongside massive explosions and a multitude of other particle effects. I’ve never noticed a frame of slowdown on my Xbox Series X.
The animations are fantastic, especially for the dinosaurs. The game might be about time travel, rogue AI, Iron Man suits, and Dinosaurs, but the beasts themselves move in very realistic and lifelike ways. Coming from the same company that makes the Monster Hunter series, that should be no surprise.
The controls are exceptionally tight, and you can definitely feel the inspiration that’s been pulled from other Capcom games, including Monster Hunter, Devil May Cry, and Dragon’s Dogma. The gunplay, abilities, and character movement simply feel smooth to use.
Exoprimal offers a large variety of classes that all fulfill one of three roles, offense, tank, or support. But each one tackles those roles in very different ways and has distinct strengths and weaknesses. At the same time, they feel exceptionally balanced.
Finally, while Exoprimal always retains some element of PvE meets PvP. You can choose you’re preference toward PvP, PvE, or both, letting people play how they want.
A technical standpoint is about the only objective measure a game can have. Exoprimal passes that measure with flying colors.
Number 3: It’s Incredibly Unique
There is a degree of resistance that Exoprimal faces, simply for being different. I’ve seen some folks say that they would be interested in Exoprimal if it was just a horde shooter or Earth Defense Force with dinosaurs. Plenty of people seem turned off by the unique element of PvPvE.
I get that to some extent. But there are a few things you should consider. The first is that Exoprimal is rarely a sweaty game. Even in direct confrontation with other players (which is something that can be toggled off aside from Dominators). Although there is a ton of depth to playing the game well, it always retains the casual feeling of a beer and chips type of experience. Exoprimal is more of a friendly “Ah, you got me” kind of game than an “I had intercourse with your mom” type of vibe.
Secondly, it’s that unique blend that allows Exoprimal to work so well. It manages to appeal to a lot of modern sensitivities that I generally hate to see in games. Yet it works out because of how the game is structured.
For example. If you die, you only have a short time to wait before respawning, and you always spawn close to the action. If Exoprimal was purely a horde shooter. You either couldn’t have that, or the game would do it anyway and remove every ounce of challenge from fighting the dinosaurs. The fact that you are racing against another team, however, allows you to have the best of both worlds.
You can respawn fast. But you definitely don’t want to die anyway because every second lost matters in a race against the other team. At the same time. There are also co-op raids that throw both teams together to face a threat, with either a timer or a respawn limit.
If the game only consisted of those raids, it would get dull pretty quickly. The fact that they are used sparingly really helps elevate the excitement of playing them.
Exosuits can only exist the way they do because there is so much variance between the various PvE enemies and objectives, and ending mission modes that are a mix PvE and PvP.
Exosuits can afford to have distinct weaknesses thanks to that variance and the ability to switch between them in-game. Having those weaknesses, also allows them to also have distinct strengths. Every Exosuit can afford to be better in some situations than other suits because the fluid nature of the game means they won’t be better in EVERY situation over the other suits.
We are in a gaming climate of remakes, sequels, and copycats. Innovation is deemed too risky by large publishers and so they stick to a proven norm. If we ever want that to change, we have to support the few truly unique games that do release, especially when their uniqueness is done as well as Exoprimal.
Number 4: It’s Getting Even Better
I am hesitant to use the word “live service” because the term has such a bad reputation these days. But the concept is somewhat inseparable from the idea of a game where you continually get new additions for free. So yes, you can buy cosmetics in Exoprimal, and most of them can be earned from a seasonal battle pass.
Those cosmetics are what funds the ongoing expansion of the game and Exoprimal does it pretty well by keeping those live service elements purely cosmetic, while also offering plenty of free cosmetics to unlock. In return, Exoprimal has expanded quite a bit since it was released.
Capcom has added a variant of every existing Exosuit. These variants completely alter the main function of those Exosuits to the point that they feel like new characters, but without replacing what those suits are meant to be wholesale. It’s simply more variety.
Savage Gauntlet has been added which is a strictly PvE time trial mode with leaderboards. We have a new end-game mission called Escape, where both teams work together against a massive horde to take control of points around the map and then escape. They have also added more rigs, modules, and cosmetics.
Additionally, Capcom tweaked how the missions and matchmaking were generated for more variety. I find myself being thrown into the easier early missions a lot less and have experienced more variety overall.
Season 3 is coming in January 2024, which is going to include a new map, new variant suits, a new Neo Triceratops boss, and a Monster Hunter collaboration that involves a fight against big papa Ratholos from that series. Then in April of 2024, we are scheduled to get a new co-op mode called Time Rebellion as well as custom matches. With January and Season 3 approaching fast, now is a great time to start playing.
Number 5: It’s a Gamey Game
Exoprimal is a gamey video game, and unrepentantly so. We used to get those types of games a lot more often before the industry decided that every title had to attempt to be a visionary masterpiece of the arts. While simultaneously narrowing that artistic criteria down to mean one thing, cinematic storytelling.
Only Nintendo seems to have escaped the fad. And they sort of run on a reality of their own fueled by the sheer power of Millennial nostalgia. Now, despite being a Millennial myself. I’m definitely not the target market for the type of games Nintendo makes and publishes. But I still have to respect them for remembering that games can just be games instead of movies.
Speaking of nostalgia, Exoprimal feels like a game from another time period. Not because anything about it is dated. But because it has the feel of being a game that you come back to simply because it’s fun to play. It hands you the wild idea of combining mechs and dinosaurs and simply says, have a great time. Just like games like Twisted Metal handed you cars with guns, Alien vs Predator handed you its own universe, and the old-school Star Wars Battlefront games handed you theirs.
Exoprimal makes me feel the way that Capcom’s own Lost Planet 2 did. Lost Planet 2 is one of the best games Capcom has ever made, and another one that I felt was treated unfairly. It had a similarly unique, quirky, and quintessentially gamey charm that gaming is direly lacking these days.
I’ve seen plenty of others attempt to break the mold, crash and burn. I could definitely write a novel on Evolve, and honestly, I just might. But the thing is, we are now entering a critical point in the industry. Capitalism has no mercy, and numbers must always go up, or the suits don’t see the idea as worthy of existence.
While I can definitely enjoy your God of Wars, Assassin’s Creeds, and numerous remakes, I’d like to have a bit more variety. We either support the games that stray from the norm now, or they will be gone forever. I’d like Exoprimal and its gamey siblings to have continued existence. If Lost Planet 2 had to die, let be so Exoprimal could live.
You might also enjoy these other pieces I wrote about Exoprimal.
