Capcom went through some dark years, where everything that came out was well below expectations, especially when it came to the Resident Evil franchise. And with lower quality games, the money in terms of sales was also affected, even more so with the high cost of the games produced, which led to a lack of belief in the publisher among the general public.
But in recent years, everything has changed. Capcom started releasing high quality games, one after the other, generating both critical and sales success. And that famous company that people had lost faith in was finally back on track and showing all the quality that had made it one of the oldest and best-known companies in the gaming world.
Many of the company's IPs have been around for dozens of years, such as Monster Hunter, Street Fighter, Devil May Cry and Resident Evil itself. But despite having these historic IPs, Capcom has never stopped creating IPs and exploring places never explored by the studio. Exoprimal is one of these games where Capcom challenges itself to go to a place never visited, but can it maintain the quality we've seen in other recent games from the studio?
Doubtful since the announcement
Capcom, as already mentioned, is a very famous studio that has helped shape the games we have today, passing through several consoles and generations, always innovating and creating intellectual properties of great power. Whether it's a big franchise or a small one, there will always be someone who likes and cares about the IP (a.k.a. Fan), and one of the franchises that fans are asking for the most is Dino Crisis.
But for some reason, we've never seen a new game in the franchise, or even a remaster or remake. And for those who don't know, the game was basically a Resident Evil where, instead of facing zombies, you faced dinosaurs. The protagonist of the franchise had very striking red hair. And then, one day, we had this...
That little glimpse of a short red hair made fans go wild, even more so when at the start of the trailer we saw that the game featured dinosaurs. But to the chagrin of the fans, it wasn't a new Dino Crisis, but a new franchise: Exoprimal. This is the one we'll be looking at here. However, it's possible that this introduction will be longer than the analysis of the game itself, or maybe not. We'll see...
But anyway, let's get down to business:
What is Exoprimal?
Unlike Capcom's recent successes, where the focus was on a totally single player game, Exoprimal is a totally online game, which even has a story, with cutscenes and such, but nowhere near what we're used to seeing. It's a futuristic game, set in 2043, with very visible influences from games like Anthem and World War Z.
In the game, you take control of an exoskeleton, which is where the name of the game comes from, but which is more like a suit of armor, very similar to what you see in Anthem, but without the game's flight mechanics. The game has some of the classes we know from other online games, such as sniper, tank and support, but each of these classes has certain types of armor that greatly change the dynamics of the game.
With the weapons and abilities provided by the armor, you face hordes of enemies in the various matches you have to play to finish the game's story, which takes around 15 hours. And then the game goes as follows: you enter the match; you face a horde of dinosaurs; then another; then another; and another; you face other players and that's it.
It's exactly this same order that we play from start to finish, in the only mode the game has, in all the 15 hours it takes to finish the story. But not to be unfair, the end of the game, where you face other players, changes a little.
We can take on more hordes to see which team finishes first. We can take on some more powerful dinosaurs to see which team finishes first. We can take on other players in the classic capture the flag. You can take on other players in the classic push the cart mode. But regardless of which final challenge you face, the way to get there is always the same: face hordes and hordes of enemies, competing to see which team finishes fastest.
And despite being repetitive, the first few hours are a lot of fun. The gunplay is really cool, and changes a lot depending on the armor you select, as well as the skills you can use. And as you level up, new armor is unlocked, but don't expect this to happen quickly, it takes a good few hours.
As well as evolving the player's levels, the armor also evolves individually and through these evolutions we can improve certain aspects of it and add new weapons and skills. It's also possible to customize the armor, changing color schemes and even adding some small details that aren't very visible when you play.
The game has a few different stages, but for some reason you often play the same stage in sequence. As for the enemies, we also have a few different types, but these are special enemies or bosses. During the hordes, you basically face two types, and in each game, there are many hordes, so you know, right?
And does the game have a story?
Well, as I said, the game has a campaign with cutscenes and so on, all taking place between the matches you play. It basically works like this: you play a few matches, a cutscene comes on; you play a few more matches, another cutscene comes on; and so on.
But the background is basically this: there is an AI called Leviathan, and in order to carry out some tests, this AI calls humans from different timelines to face the dinosaurs, face each other and thus generate data that can be collected by the AI. And then we have a team that we accompany on this journey.
Over the course of the game, some elements are added to the game, but nothing that really changes the structure of the game. One curiosity is that, when you start the game, you can select the voices in Brazilian Portuguese, but only Leviathan is dubbed. All the other dialogues are in English and (obviously) subtitled. A bit strange, isn't it?
It was recently discovered that the dubbing of Leviathan was done by an artificial intelligence and not an actual voice actor. Which is something that can be criticized for a certain sloppiness, but if we take into account the context of the game, it kind of makes sense, doesn't it? Well, I'll leave it to you to think about it.
And the look?
The game, as has been the case with recent Capcom games, runs on the RE Engine, which has proved to be a very flexible engine. However, we don't see anything extraordinary in Exoprimal, but nothing too bad either. The game is very simple visually, but it is beautiful in some ways, some specific parts of the scenery for example.
But even with moderate graphics, the game managed to keep a large number of enemies and effects on screen at the same time, and at no point did I feel that this hindered the game's performance. Not that I'm the best person to talk about this, after all, I'm one of those who is already satisfied with 30 fps, and in this sense, Exoprimal didn't bother me at any point.
The cutscenes are nothing special, as is the game's soundtrack, so in that sense, nothing to comment on. One thing that did bother me is the fact that the game has a good number of loading screens, but they're not so long that it becomes stressful. At least not in the first few hours, because with too much gameplay, it can become quite boring.
Is it worth it?
After all this information in the text, it's up to you to decide whether it's worth it or not. I said above that perhaps the introduction would be longer than the review itself, but I was wrong. However, that doesn't change the fact that the game is very simple and very repetitive from start to finish.
For those with an Xbox, the game is available on Game Pass, and you'll find fun in it, at least for a few hours. In that sense, I think it's worth it, but for those who play on PlayStation, as was our case, I recommend waiting for more content to be added to the game or at least a promotion. But again, the game is fun, but over time it becomes repetitive.
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English 
Portuguese