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A fun shooter with a little bit of everything - even time travel and dinos! - Exoprimal Quick Review

4K View2023-07-19

Exoprimal

8.6

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PLAY IT OR SKIP IT?

Play it. Exoprimal combines the fast-paced sci-fi shooting action of Titanfall 2 with the team-based gameplay of Overwatch and adds its own twist with dinosaurs and multidimensional time travel. Even with some issues—slow progression, unbalanced characters, and messy gameplay modes—this mix of great elements from other games with its own unique style provides an insanely entertaining time.

TIME PLAYED

I played Exoprimal for nine hours. Each match takes anywhere between twelve to twenty minutes to complete. It took around three to four hours for the game to open up and introduce more content. So far, I’ve reached player level 26 and upgraded three exosuits to level 5 and above. I’ve also faced off against one of the game’s major enemies.

WHAT’S AWESOME

• Shooting dinosaurs, bonking players. Exoprimal delivers the rush of intense team-based action that I’ve grown to love from multiplayer shooters and combines it with fun player-versus-environment gameplay. Even just shooting at dinosaurs or slashing away through other players was enough fun for me to keep playing for hours on end—and that’s not including the multiple maps, game modes, and missions with more varied objectives that I could embark on. There was always something exciting to do in Exoprimal, and it’s given me more joy than most other multiplayer games I’ve played in the last few months.

• Exosuits and character customization. Exoprimal let me bring different exosuits into battle and exchange them whenever I needed to. Each suit features its own unique playstyle, and they can be further customized with modules and rigs. These different parts essentially operate like gear in other games, providing small buffs to movement speed, damage, and so on. I had a lot of fun experimenting with these customizations and testing them out across matches.

• A mesmerizing view. Exoprimal looks freakin’ incredible up close. From the environment to the characters and cutscenes, there isn’t anything in this game that doesn’t look great.

• A sci-fi, time-traveling journey. Exoprimal weaves together a truly intriguing, mysterious storyline that’s backed by great voice acting. The story dives into a future where humanity has unlocked multidimensional time travel. Exosuit fighters, another technological advancement that are basically superpowerful soldiers, use the time travel to fight in war games against dinosaurs. After a few hours, that sci-fi setup blossoms into a suspenseful tale that had me eagerly awaiting each new cutscene every few matches.

• Beating other players at the game. I’m a pretty competitive person when it comes to multiplayer games, and thankfully Exoprimal delivers an amazing team-based experience. No matter which mode I played, working alongside other players was important in Exoprimal. Even if I was popping off and doing my best, I still needed my team to win the game. And although this means I occasionally lost because of my team, I still enjoyed playing with other people.

WHAT SUCKS

• You’ll always be playing with other players, even in PVE content. Exoprimal features PVP and PVE modes, but there’s not much of a significant difference between the two. I either faced other players in combat or competed against them for an objective. Although I enjoyed playing with other people, I really wish Exoprimal had a better PVE experience where I had been able to take on dinosaurs on my own. It would be nice to have a dedicated mode where instead of joining four other players, I could just slay a bunch of dinosaurs by myself.

• Unbalanced characters are a little frustrating. Although I liked that Exoprimal allowed me to switch characters in the middle of a match to adapt to different combat scenarios, a majority of those characters feel undeniably unbalanced. Smart teams will stack the same overpowered characters, like Barrage and Nimbus, to win matches with ease. I wish there was a lock-in feature to prohibit players from choosing two of the same characters in matches—or at least some mitigation for these unbalanced characters.

• Slow progression. Just when I thought I’d seen it all after just a few hours of gameplay, Exoprimal introduced a bunch of new dinosaurs, maps, and missions. Although this steady and slow progression has kept me interested in the game, the pace for unlocking new content is excruciatingly tedious. Not only that, but the game didn’t even tell me if there’s more content waiting to be unlocked higher up in progression; I had to find out myself by grinding away.

• No ranked system. I’m really peeved that there’s no ranked system in Exoprimal despite the gameplay being heavily PVP-focused. I want to show off my guns and bedazzle myself in shiny badges and ranks. The game sorely needs a ranked system to make playing matches over a long period of time worthwhile for multiplayer junkies like me.

• No text chat. I was a little surprised that Exoprimal connected my mic before even confirming with me if I wanted it on, but I’m glad there’s a voice chat system so I could communicate with my team somehow. That said, I wish there was a text chat feature for the PC version at least so I could communicative without having to use my mic all the time.

💬 Will you play Exoprimal or are you going to skip it? Let me know down in the comments!