Exoprimal’s time-traveling, dinosaur-blasting premise firmly positions it as one of many strangest multiplayer shooters on the horizon. Players have gotten to pattern its madness in a earlier open beta, however a latest hands-on preview gave me an opportunity to peek into the game’s storytelling construction and customization.
As a fast primer, Exoprimal duties you and 4 different buddies to crew as much as battle waves of invading dinosaurs. Outfitted in specialised exosuits, you’ll blast aside velociraptors, triceratops, and mighty T-Rexes in a race to complete missions earlier than a rival squad of gamers completes the identical duties. Similar to Overwatch, exosuits promote particular roles and playstyles, akin to numerous attackers, tanks, and healers. My favourite grew to become the Zepher, a swift, melee-focused swimsuit wielding a sword. Players can swap fits anytime, permitting groups to shift methods to adapt to altering aims. In addition to dealing with the extinct predators, missions additionally put you in direct battle with the opposite crew, resulting in firefights geared toward sabotaging every others’ progress.
The motion is wild, and the plot isn’t too far behind. The story follows a small band of troopers from the yr 2040. You management a custom-made avatar serving to your squad chief, the powerful but jovial Lorenzo, and your teammates: Alders, the sassy brains of the operation, Majesty, a no-nonsense fighter, and Sandy, the crew’s robotic helper. The tacky banter, humor, and total B-movie vibe give me sturdy Binary Domain vibes; Exoprimal is aware of it is foolish and doesn’t fake to be anything.
Cutscenes happen between multiplayer matches (there’s no conventional single-player marketing campaign) and regularly inform a time-traveling plot during which our crew finds themselves transported a number of years right into a future parallel actuality the place they encounter alternate variations of themselves. The solely option to see how they cease the dinos and save Earth is by finishing matches, which unlock new scenes in an online known as the Analysis Map. This massive move chart accommodates particular person story cinematics starting in a round outer rim that, when unlocked, opens linked scenes that weave in direction of what seems to be a finale on the heart. Although I managed to unlock a number of scenes in a row after only a few rounds, the nodes are quite a few sufficient to recommend you’ll must spend hours taking part in matches to see how this wacky journey concludes.
I additionally explored the Hangar, the place you possibly can customise exosuits with new Modules and beauty skins. Modules are bought with in-game foreign money upon assembly stage necessities and might enhance well being, increase talents and alter their efficiency. You can equip as much as three, with every slot holding a particular kind. Slot 1 holds Suit Modules, and Slots 2 and three maintain combat-focused Action Modules. More generalized Base Modules match into any slot, akin to one which raises moments pace at critically low well being. These results are upgraded by spending extra foreign money, and you’ll equip the identical Module throughout a number of exosuits. You can additional customise a swimsuit by equipping a Rig, a bit of apparatus that provides a singular capability, akin to a particular assault or a restore perform. Conveniently, a swimsuit might be set as a favourite, so that you’ll routinely begin matches sporting it.
I’ve performed nicely over a dozen matches of Exoprimal at this level, and it continues to be a enjoyable and often-chaotic good time, particularly alongside some good buddies over chat. Though it performs exceptionally, I’m nonetheless not sure if the game can maintain curiosity within the months after launch. The story will solely hook gamers for therefore lengthy (if in any respect), so we’ll see if there’s sufficient meat on these fossilized bones to maintain gamers returning for extra.
Exoprimal arrives on July 14 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. The game can even be obtainable on Xbox Game Pass at launch.
