What’s surprising about Exoprimal is that it’s somehow wilder than that concept would predict for a game with “Dino Forecasts” that warn the people of thousands of dinosaurs about to rain out of portals in the sky. It’s a hero shooter in which two teams of five compete against one another in dino-hunting war games, sometimes explicitly and sometimes inferentially, in order to see who can fulfill a variety of tasks more quickly. And occasionally they work together! It blends many well-known components from team-based multiplayer games like Overwatch and Team Fortress 2 with wave-based survival to produce a unique experience that is really enjoyable if you can find a well-balanced group.
Exoprimal: Overview
Exoprimal is a multiplayer-only game with the plot and development of a single-player game, in case it wasn’t already abundantly evident. The overall plot is exactly the sort of goofy science fiction you’d expect: you and your squadmates are all imprisoned on a mystery island where a calamity released dinosaurs into a not-too-distant future planet. You are taken away by the evil AI Leviathan to compete in an infinite war game with a Dinosaur vs. Exosuit theme as your three squadmates gather data and try to figure out what the heck occurred in order to acquire combat data. Folks, it’s very obvious where ChatGPT is going in this direction.
Exoprimal: Multiplayer PvEvP
The multiplayer PvEvP (player-vs-environment-vs-player) gameplay in Exoprimal is made up of several war games. You and another team race to finish a series of enjoyable but initially constrained objectives, such as simply killing a certain number of dinosaurs. Capturing control points, or taking down a particularly beefy dinosaur. That tries to flee from you and forces you to navigate swarms of velociraptors in order to track it down. Similar to Capcom’s own Dead Rising, there is a special delight to destroying literally hundreds. And occasionally even thousands, of dinosaurs in a single goal. The team that completes their goals the quickest receives a head start in the final round. Which will either consist of more PvE-style objectives or will merge the two worlds into one. And pit the teams against one another in a mode straight out of Overwatch as they compete to push their payload to the goal.
Destroying thousands of dinos is appealing
I enjoy how the majority of each Exoprimal encounter is now an indirect race against the opposing squad rather than a full-on brawl. You get to relax and concentrate on efficiency for a while. Rather than on hyper-precise precision, twitch reflexes, and map knowledge. Making sure you’re aware of your cooldowns, using your special attacks so that they affect the greatest number of enemies. And helping your teammates so they can do their jobs all scratch a particularly satisfying itch in the typically directly combative environment. Additionally, it makes the last round feel even more special, particularly in PvP matches. When the victorious team serves as the equivalent of the final monster. Here, you must weigh entirely new factors. Such as whether to remain with your team to advance the payload more quickly or to split off. And try to obstruct the opposing team’s progress.
Exoprimal: Additional Info
In addition, Leviathan may occasionally assign a “dominator” to one of the sides. Enabling that player to temporarily change into a huge carnotaurus or triceratops and wreck havoc on the enemy team. Does that make sense at all? Not really, no. Does it provide the Geometry Dash game any new strategic facets? Of course it does! Does your team use the dominator right away in an effort to gain an advantage or gain ground? Or do you take the chance of holding off until you’re near the conclusion when your opponents’ ultimate abilities are more likely to be on cooldown, allowing you to go berserk? Who on your team need to be the initial recipient of the dominator? When you’re harassing the opposing team like a dinosaur, can your squad survive without you? These are the kinds of split-second choices that Exoprimal’s multiplayer battles make. Expanding them quickly to feel far deeper than they might at first appear after one or two rounds.