Lock and load, exofighters, because the war games are starting up soon. Exoprimal is one of the newest games developed by Capcom, bringing back one of the oldest known enemies in video gaming history, the dinosaur, and combining it with sci-fi elements.
The game begins with some lore, telling players that during the near future of 2040, someone or something has been opening interdimensional, time-traveling portals named “vortexes'' all around Earth before sending in overwhelming hordes of dinosaurs to cause mass amounts of death and destruction. With the rise of the global apocalypse, humanity fought back against this prehistoric threat by enlisting exofighters – soldiers equipped with exosuits created by the Aibius Corporation – to combat the rising threat to all human life.
That’s where the player enters. Once the lore ends, the game then fast-forwards three years into the future and introduces the player to their customizable character, the rookie exofighter Ace. After the player is done customizing Ace, they then go through a tutorial on the mechanics of the game, from familiarizing the basic abilities and weapons of an exosuit to learning how to swap between exosuits on the fly.
Afterward, Ace is assigned to Patrol Squad #53585, the “Hammerheads.” The team is composed of Lorenzo, the squad leader, and mechanic; Alders, the engineer; Majesty, a serious and skilled exo fighter; and Sandy, the squad’s android assistant.
During a mission, Hammerhead gets sucked into a vortex and crash lands on Bikitoa Island in a mystifying alternate timeline, leading to Ace meeting a fellow exofighter named Magnum and the residential A.I. that runs the island in this timeline, Leviathan. However, players swiftly learn that Leviathan is more corrupt than his friendly nature and appearance let on, as he has been kidnapping exofighters from other timelines and dimensions and transporting them into Bikitoa so that he can run his war games. The so-called “games” include a compilation of combat tests that pit two teams of five against each other and have them complete objectives while they fight through hordes of dinosaurs, from raptors and pterodactyls to the triceratops and the Tyrannosaurus rex.
Capcom truly has evolved over the years. Founded on May 30, 1979, Capcom was the creation of two separate companies, I.R.M. Corporation and Capsule Computers Co., Ltd., both of which specialized in the development and distribution of electronic video game machines. After a name change and a merging of both companies in January 1989, Capcom came into existence and developed the first installment of its first video game series, Street Fighter, in 1991, following up with the creation of its best-selling game series, Resident Evil, in 1996. As the years passed, Capcom created more and more games that slowly became the company's icons, with cherished game series like Ace Attorney, Mega Man, and Devil May Cry.
The mechanics of Exoprimal focus less on the game in general and more on one of the main topics of the game: exosuits. In Exoprimal, there are three classes players can choose from – Assault, Tank, and Support. Each class has a vast array of exosuits that have dozens of unique special abilities, weapons, playstyles, and drawbacks that suit the player’s needs. This is combined with the fact that players can change exosuits on the fly, even in mid-fight, which allows them to diversify their playstyle and experiment with others until they find one that suits them the most. The first class that players can choose in the game is the “Assault Class,” a grouping of exosuits that focus on dealing damage to opponents at close, medium, or long ranges. The next class is the “Tank Class,” which has exosuits that specialize in protecting their allies with their defensive abilities while drawing enemy attention off their teammates and onto themselves. Finally, the last class in the game is the “Support Class,” a catalog of exosuits that allow players to heal their teammates and give them buffs, while simultaneously giving enemies debuffs.
In conclusion, Exoprimal has left a huge impact on the gaming community and has brought new fans into Capcom’s fanbase. It has already come out on July 14, but it is available for the PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Xbox Series X & S, Xbox Cloud Gaming, and Microsoft Windows.