Exoprimal review: an ode to Team Fortress 2 whose twist comes too late

Exoprimal makes a horrible first impression.

Its mixed-media opening blends a breaking information section with a company recruitment marketing campaign, and in some way, the sport manages to make its absurd (albeit refreshingly unserious) near-future premise borderline inconceivable to clarify. However maintain on, let me give it a go: Rifts within the cloth of space-time have introduced hordes of dinosaurs to Earth, necessitating the manufacture of exosuits to repel the invasion, in addition to a complicated synthetic intelligence known as Leviathan, whose prime directive is to coach fighters and monitor the operation.

You play as Ace, a mute rookie who joins a patrol squad that rapidly finally ends up stranded in an alternate timeline, the place a rogue Leviathan is forcing exosuits to participate in infinite wargames masqueraded as fight checks. Mentioned wargames manifest as 5v5 player-versus-environment-versus-player multiplayer matches, the place you push by way of a sequence of cooperative dinosaur protection aims whereas translucent phantoms point out the placement of your human enemies, exhibiting you whether or not that you must pace up or take it straightforward.

Full your duties, although, and all of the sudden each groups are thrust onto the identical taking part in discipline as a ultimate task looms, and that is the place the magic occurs. Now you can intervene instantly with the enemy by blowing up their payload or pulling off a sneaky gank. Oh, and in case you decide up one of many randomly spawning “Dominator” power-ups, you may rework right into a Triceratops, teleport into enemy territory, and wreak scaly havoc.

Picture: Capcom by way of Polygon

Sadly, in its slow-going opening hours, Exoprimal makes it frighteningly straightforward to write down it off as one other live-service hero shooter lurking in Overwatch’s shadow. The regiment of 10 exosuits you may hot-swap between features a shield-toting tank, a rollerblading help, and a katana-wielding carry. Their biomechanical designs and fleshy, plastic couch innards are beautiful to have a look at, however the door is left large open for snide comparisons, and I felt inclined to make them — till I fell in love with my most important.

Exoprimal is at its finest when your workforce is aiming for max synergy

Barrage is a fiery-haired mix of Workforce Fortress 2’s Demoman and Overwatch’s Junkrat. He pumps out bouncy explosives with a satisfying clunk and has a complementary stun grenade for clumping collectively raptors. Exoprimal’s mechanics are tight and effectively as much as Capcom’s excessive requirements — stringing collectively these button presses is a satisfying kinetic course of that means that you can enter a circulate state of mayhem. In Barrage’s case, this ends together with his final, the place you may flip into a big missile and wipe out a complete five-stack of human gamers.

Regardless of briefly moonlighting as a sniper far-off from the motion, embracing the extra instant chaos as Barrage allowed me to rapidly perceive the task. Exoprimal is at its finest when your workforce isn’t doubling up on fits, permitting for max synergy. Launching grenades on the horde and watching Skywave’s gravity effectively draw the dinosaurs collectively as Roadblock unleashes a twister of doom is so satisfying, and it opens up alternatives for melee characters like Zephyr to swoop in and pummel the raptors as they whip round in sequence like they’re caught in a cosmic washer.

Picture: Capcom by way of Polygon

Nonetheless, given that every swimsuit has its personal proprietary development system, there’s little incentive to change when you’ve discovered your favourite, which is firstly a serious disgrace given the hassle that has gone into crafting the 10-strong roster’s builds, nevertheless it additionally creates inevitable workforce composition points as soon as a meta hardens round Exoprimal. As robust as it will have been to surrender on being a Barrage lifer, I might have most popular not with the ability to double up the fits inside a workforce to maximise potential tactical creativity.

Regardless, I regularly realized how I might complement my squad’s skills as I climbed by way of the proficiency ranks, assigning and upgrading modules that modified my hero’s expertise in significant methods. It rapidly grew to become obvious that Capcom’s newest is a really completely different breed of hero shooter, one through which it’s way more about effectivity and communication than being “cracked.”

Just like the meals critic in Ratatouille, I used to be introduced again to a halcyon time when esports skill wasn’t so coveted, and it was extra about having enjoyable pushing a payload with your mates on Gold Rush or preventing by way of the mall mobs in Lifeless Middle. These emotions are fleeting, although, as Exoprimal can typically be its personal worst enemy. Between matches, you’ll undergo by way of the mockumentary dialogue of a ship crew that appears like a watered-down Guardians of the Galaxy, begrudgingly clicking by way of a branching “evaluation map” of mysteries, watching the tracker tick towards your subsequent reward — a jargon-filled cutscene. The loop can grate within the early recreation, as, for a number of hours, there’s a definite lack of mission selection and solely a handful of maps… till one thing genuinely disarming occurs.

[Ed. note: The following contains gameplay spoilers for Exoprimal.]

Picture: Capcom by way of Polygon

After round a dozen 30-minute matches of Dino Survival, you’ll start matchmaking into what seems to be a normal multiplayer recreation, solely to seek out that certainly one of your Aussie NPC comrades has invaded it, becoming a member of your squad to gather some knowledge (and to name Leviathan “fucked within the head”). This shared-world storytelling occasion enrages the rogue AI, who begins tearing on the seams of the wargame’s guidelines, all when you’re nonetheless racing to beat the enemy workforce as standard. Mutated dinosaurs rear their heads, in addition to thousand-strong swarms of pterodactyls and new, extra participating mission aims, like defending a VTOL or charging up a hammer to interrupt by way of space limitations.

Exoprimal units a captivating precedent for future multiplayer storytelling shenanigans

This paradigm shift modifications Exoprimal significantly, introducing new maps, a wholesome problem spike, raid bosses, and, in the end, some real narrative intrigue. It’s a profoundly complicated pacing resolution the place you’re abruptly taking part in a really completely different, arguably a lot better recreation a number of hours in, one that really units a captivating precedent for future multiplayer storytelling shenanigans. Within the recreation’s universe, that is canonized as a “firmware replace” — which is smart, however I simply want it will have come a lot sooner, or was not less than communicated higher within the recreation’s advertising, as many gamers may not achieve entry to Exoprimal’s finest belongings earlier than bouncing off of its boring early hours.

A seasonal live-service roadmap guarantees a time-based endgame mode, variant exosuits, and a Monster Hunter collaboration within the close to future, which, as a participant now caught within the recreation’s talons, is an thrilling prospect. Exoprimal is tough across the edges, however hopefully, by the point these updates arrive, it can have discovered the nostalgic viewers its compelling experimental narrative sorely deserves, moderately than going the best way of the dinosaurs.

Exoprimal was launched on July 14 on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Home windows PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Sequence X. The sport was reviewed on PS5 utilizing a pre-release obtain code offered by Capcom. Vox Media has affiliate partnerships. These don’t affect editorial content material, although Vox Media might earn commissions for merchandise bought by way of affiliate hyperlinks. You could find extra details about Polygon’s ethics coverage right here.

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