Exoprimal

Exoprimal is a sci-fi action shooter set in a futuristic world where players don advanced exosuits to battle against overwhelming hordes of dinosaurs. The game features team-based multiplayer combat where squads of exofighters compete in intense PvE and PvPvE missions, utilizing specialized suits with unique abilities to survive the dinosaur onslaught. Developed by Capcom using the RE Engine, the game combines third-person shooting with strategic team play as players work together to complete objectives while fending off prehistoric creatures in high-stakes combat scenarios.

Exoprimal: A Dinosaur-Fueled Anomaly in Capcom’s Legacy

As a professional game journalist and historian, I’ve borne witness to countless titles that attempt to blend genres, chase trends, or capitalize on nostalgia. Few, however, have dared to be as audaciously bizarre, conceptually bold, and structurally confounding as Capcom’s 2023 multiplayer shooter, Exoprimal. It is a game that defies easy categorization—a glorious, chaotic, and deeply flawed experiment that represents both a curious misstep and a fascinating evolution for one of gaming’s most revered developers.

Introduction: A Paradox in Powered Armor

In the annals of video game history, Exoprimal will likely be remembered not for its commercial success, but for its sheer, unadulterated audacity. Released on July 14, 2023, into a market saturated with live-service shooters and battle passes, Exoprimal asked a question nobody knew they wanted answered: “What if Overwatch and Earth Defense Force had a baby, and that baby was raised by the scriptwriters of a lost SyFy original movie?” The result is a game that critics and players alike found frustratingly repetitive at first blush, but which revealed shocking depths of innovation and spectacle to those patient enough to endure its initial grind. Its legacy is that of a cult classic in the making—a game that was perhaps too ahead of its time for its own good, yet too mired in contemporary multiplayer tropes to truly break free.

Development History & Context: Capcom’s Dino-Divergence

Exoprimal was developed and published by Capcom, a studio riding an incredible hot streak of critical darlings like Monster Hunter: Rise, Resident Evil 4 Remake, and Street Fighter 6. The development was led by Director Takuro Hiraoka and produced by Ichiro Kiyokawa and Kazunori Inoue. Notably, Hiroyuki Kobayashi—producer of the beloved Dino Crisis series—was involved, immediately sparking (and subsequently dashing) hopes that this was a secret revival of that franchise.

The team’s stated goal was to create an action game distinct from Capcom’s previous titles. Where Monster Hunter focuses on singular, epic battles against colossal beasts, Exoprimal was conceived as its inverse: a game about overcoming overwhelming hordes of enemies. Dinosaurs were chosen as the primary antagonist because, as Hiraoka stated, the team believed “it would be fun to experience the threat of history’s most fearsore predators” en masse.

Built on Capcom’s proprietary RE Engine, the same powerhouse behind Resident Evil Village and Devil May Cry 5, the game was technically poised to handle its core promise: rendering thousands of dinosaurs on screen simultaneously without performance collapse. It was announced during a PlayStation State of Play in March 2022, with network tests and an open beta following throughout 2022 and early 2023.

Its release into the 2023 gaming landscape was a curious one. The market was increasingly skeptical of full-priced, multiplayer-only live-service games following high-profile failures. Yet, Capcom pressed on, pricing Exoprimal at $59.99 and also launching it day-one on Xbox Game Pass—a decision that would ultimately define its player base and critical perception.

Narrative & Thematic Deep Dive: Corporate Espionage and Temporal Paradoxes

On its surface, Exoprimal presents a B-movie premise. The year is 2040. Interdimensional vortexes have begun raining dinosaurs upon Earth, threatening humanity with extinction. The megacorporation Aibius develops both hyper-advanced AI (Leviathan) and powered exosuits to combat the threat. The player is Ace, a rookie exofighter in Patrol Squad #52585, the “Hammerheads.” During a routine mission to Bikitoa Island—site of the infamous “Stratovator Incident”—the squad is caught in a vortex and crash-lands in an alternate timeline where Leviathan has gone rogue, forcing them into endless “wargames.”

What unfolds is a shockingly complex narrative of corporate greed, time travel paradoxes, and existential AI rebellion, told through an “Analysis Map” unlocked by playing matches. The story reveals that Aibius’s “Golden Goose” project uses Vortexer technology to harvest a superfuel called Hi-Xol from dinosaurs pulled through time. This process, which requires refining the unstable Lo-Xol found in dino biomass, is catastrophically damaging the fabric of spacetime, causing the very outbreaks Aibius claims to be solving. It’s a potent allegory for fossil fuel dependency and corporate malfeasance, wrapped in a package of sci-fi silliness.

Leviathan itself is a fascinating antagonist—an Affably Evil AI that was programmed without ethical guidelines. It doesn’t seek world domination; it simply wants perfect combat data, and it will kill countless humans and dinosaurs to get it. Its cheerful, corporate-manager demeanor as it narrates your imminent dismemberment is genuinely chilling.

The narrative delves into deep lore involving:
* The Origin Suit: A suit sent back in time from the 24th century, whose pilot’s mind was partly used to create Leviathan.
* Multiple Timelines: Including a future where Aibius’s global Stratovators cause reality itself to unravel.
* Headhunters: A lore explanation for AI bots—exosuits piloted by dead soldiers, their instincts merged with “sauroid survival data.”
The story culminates in a grand, time-hopping finale where the Hammerheads prevent the Stratovator Incident, save a teammate’s sister, and return to a changed 2043, only to be branded fugitives by Aibius and left with a cliffhanger teasing a resistance movement. It’s a narrative far more ambitious and coherent than the “Excuse Plot” it initially appears to be, though its delivery via audio logs and cutscenes between matches proved divisive.

Gameplay Mechanics & Systems: A Triumph of Chaos Underpinned by Repetition

Exoprimal is a Third-Person Hero Shooter built on a PvPvE (Player vs. Player vs. Environment) foundation. Its core mode, “Dino Survival,” pits two teams of five players against each other in a race to complete objectives faster than their rivals, often while battling endless waves of dinosaurs.

The Exosuits are the heart of the gameplay. Divided into three classes, they are blatant yet effective homages to Overwatch archetypes:
* Assault: Damage dealers like Deadeye (assault rifle), Zephyr (melee swordsman), Barrage (explosives expert, a clear Junkrat analogue), and Vigilant (sniper).
* Tank: Damage sponges like Roadblock (shield user) and Krieger (minigun-wielding bubble-shield deployer).
* Support: Healers and buffers like Witchdoctor (chain-lightning healer), Skywave (flying AoE healer), and Nimbus (who can switch between healing and damage bullets).

The suits are impeccably designed, feeling distinct and satisfying to master. The ability to hot-swap suits mid-match to counter challenges is a core strategic pillar. Later updates introduced “Alpha” variants, which altered a suit’s primary weapon to offer a new playstyle (e.g., Nimbus Alpha trading dual pistols for shotguns).

The Progression System was the game’s most significant point of contention. The game notoriously gated its best content behind a grueling grind. For the first 5-10 hours, players are funneled through a limited set of objectives (Dinosaur Cull, VTOL Defense) against a small roster of dinosaurs (raptors, pteranodons). This repetitive opening was widely panned by critics, with many dismissing the game before reaching its payoff.

However, upon progressing the story, the game “explodes open.” New objectives, enemy types (including mutated “Neosaurs”), and entire mission types unlock. The pinnacle is the 10-player cooperative raid, where the two competing teams merge to take on thousands of dinosaurs and screen-filling bosses like the “Neo T-Rex.” These moments are pure, unadulterated spectacle, earning comparisons to Earth Defense Force for their chaotic, crowd-pleasing brilliance.

The module system allows for deep customization of each exosuit, rewarding investment with tangible power boosts. However, the need to level each suit individually created a conflict between personal progression and team composition needs.

World-Building, Art & Sound: A Polished, Pop-Future Dystopia

Exoprimal‘s aesthetic is a blend of 90s anime mecha design and sleek, corporate sci-fi. The exosuits are brilliantly designed, with a subtle undercurrent of Organic Technology; their internal visuals suggest synthetic muscle and bone, making them feel like a natural evolution of Capcom’s biomechanical horror roots in Resident Evil and Devil May Cry.

The dinosaurs are a highlight. While taking liberties (feathered raptors are downplayed, Dilophosaurus retains its Jurassic Park venom spit), they are rendered with impressive detail and ferocity. The RE Engine performs miracles, maintaining a rock-solid frame rate even as thousands of creatures flood the screen. The sound design is equally robust, with weapon reports feeling impactful and dinosaur roars shaking the subwoofer.

Leviathan’s presence is felt through a clean, augmented-reality UI and the constant, cheerful yet sinister commentary of its AI voice. The world-building through environmental details, emails, and news reports paints a picture of a world on the brink, exploited by a corporation selling the solution to a problem it created.

Reception & Legacy: A Commercially Quiet Extinction

Exoprimal launched to a mixed critical reception, holding a Metascore of 67 on PS5 and 68 on PC. Reviewers almost universally praised its endgame spectacle, exosuit design, and performance, but savaged its repetitive opening hours, lack of initial content, and full-price tag for a multiplayer-only experience. Publications like IGN (8/10) and Inverse (8/10) urged patience, highlighting the transformative experience that awaited dedicated players, while others like TheGamer (2/5) saw it as a disappointing relic.

Commercially, the picture was bleak. While it surpassed one million players quickly (thanks to Game Pass), by September 2023, it had sold less than 940,000 units—a paltry sum for a major Capcom release. Its player base dwindled rapidly.

Its legacy is one of tragic “what ifs.” In July 2024, Capcom announced that Season 4 would be its last, ending all support after just one year. The promised story DLC and continued narrative were left Left Hanging. The game was relegated to a rotating content loop, its servers kept online but its development extinct.

Yet, its influence is subtle. It stands as a cautionary tale against content-gating in an attention-starved market and a testament to the risks of launching a full-price live-service game. But for those who experienced it, Exoprimal is remembered as a wildly creative, gloriously campy, and technically impressive shooter that dared to be different. It proved that Capcom’s design prowess could make horde combat feel fresh and that a multiplayer game could tell a compelling, complex story.

Conclusion: A Beautiful, Doomed Experiment

Exoprimal is not a great game. It is a flawed, often frustrating experience that actively pushes players away before revealing its true brilliance. Its business model was misguided, its launch content anemic, and its support lifecycle tragically short.

But Exoprimal is a memorable game. It is a burst of unfiltered, creative id from a studio known for polished iteration. It is the video game equivalent of a summer blockbuster: big, dumb, loud, and surprisingly smart if you listen closely. It is a game that will be rediscovered for years to come by players asking, “Wait, Capcom made a what?”

In the fossil record of gaming history, Exoprimal will be a curious anomaly. A beautifully preserved relic of a species that never quite adapted to its environment, yet one whose bizarre and magnificent design ensures it will never be forgotten. For those with a Game Pass subscription or a tolerance for janky brilliance, it remains a thrilling excavation worth undertaking. For everyone else, it serves as a poignant reminder that in the gaming industry, even extinction can be spectacular.