Ahead of the Capcom Showcase this morning, I spoke with director Hiraoka Takuro and producer Kiyokawa Ichiro to talk about all things Exoprimal. Takuro has previously worked at Capcom as a designer on the recent Monster Hunter games.
The first question I had to ask was whether there was an underlying story, and if Exoprimal could be enjoyed solo or is restricted to multiplayer only.
The team responded by saying that as the main mode is called Dino Survival (more on that later) that there is no single-player story mode of sorts. As players play more and more combat tests, they’ll discover ways to advance the story.
It’s hard to say how that exactly plays out in the game, but it’s an intriguing premise nonetheless.
Exoprimal takes place on Bikitoa Island and has you participating in experiments for the mysterious Aibius Corp. Intrigued by this story, I asked the team whether they could elaborate on the setting for Exoprimal.
They told me that the game revolves around an AI created by Aibius to “better help the world develop”. In doing so, the AI realised it could learn more by pitting people against each other to learn quickly rather than run simulations.
This new generation of AI, called Leviathan, is trying to drive humans into as many combat tests as possible (called Wargames) to better understand how to combat the imminent threat.
The team insisted that there were more mysteries awaiting us on the island and that I’d have to play the finished game to find out. So sorry, Dino Crisis fans, I’m not convinced this is a secret sequel.
So armed with that knowledge, the question remains as to how the game plays. In the latest trailer, we got a peek at the different objectives that you’ll be faced with in Dino Survival. So I asked how each of these objectives play out in the midst of battle?
The main mode, Dino Survival, plays out as a variety of PvP and PvE missions. The Leviathan AI will essentially present objectives to the team during each match and the first team to complete them will win. Leviathan will present different objectives – so even if you’re playing on the same map, things will change. The number of dinosaurs and even the type of dinosaurs spawned in each mission will also change.
So far, the major objectives revealed are Dinosaur Cull, Omega Charge, VTOL Defence, Data Key Security, and Energy Taker.
The developers described the different modes to me – and they’re just as you’d expect. Dinosaur Cull is the simplest, requiring you to defeat a certain amount of dinosaurs to clear it. Omega Charge has you defeating dinosaurs to charge a hammer in the field. Players can then use that hammer to destroy a target objective – destroy them all to win.
The other modes – VTOL Defence, Data Key Security, and Energy Taker – are all inspired by typical modes in other games. Defend a point, hold a point and gather objectives following kills to win. It sounds rather simple, but hopefully, the amount of missions and the regularity with which they’re thrown at you will keep things interesting in Exoprimal.
There will be a lot more variations of these missions in the final game, the director assures me, so it seems we haven’t seen everything the game has to offer just yet.
Of course, I just had to ask which dinosaurs there will be in the game and if there will be any added in future updates. The team only was coyly able to admit that there will be more dinosaurs than originally shown in the trailers so far.
They also highlighted that a new type of dinosaur, called Neosaurs, will appear in the game as a mutation of some sort. I was naturally told to “wait for future announcements” regarding their presence in the game.
The developers described the different modes to me – and they’re just as you’d expect. Dinosaur Cull is the simplest, requiring you to defeat a certain amount of dinosaurs to clear it. Omega Charge has you defeating dinosaurs to charge a hammer in the field. Players can then use that hammer to destroy a target objective – destroy them all to win.
The other modes – VTOL Defence, Data Key Security, and Energy Taker – are all inspired by typical modes in other games. Defend a point, hold a point and gather objectives following kills to win. It sounds rather simple, but hopefully, the number of missions and the regularity with which they’re thrown at you will keep things interesting in Exoprimal.
There will be a lot more variations of these missions in the final game, the director assures me, so it seems we haven’t seen everything the game has to offer just yet.
Shifting gears, I asked the team what it was like to use RE Engine to build creatures like the dinosaurs we saw in the trailer. Their answer was simple – they were proud of what they’d achieved and even felt that RE Engine produced visuals that were far more threatening than dinosaurs in previous games. They’re particularly proud of how the muscles on dinosaurs like the T-Rex are emphasized more to make it “scarier” to face them.
The trailer closed with the announcement that a closed network test was coming – so naturally, I had to ask them what was in the closed network test.
It’s obviously not the full game, but it will allow players to play Dino Survival mode with a limited set of missions, maps, and dinosaurs.
Of the suits in the game – we’ll get to play with four of them. Two assault (Deadeye and Zephyr), a tank (Roadblock), and support (Witch Doctor). You’ll also be able to utilise three different rigs in the game – a catapult that allows you to perform huge jumps, a cannon that fires a powerful laser, and an aid that produces a repair field.
That pretty much wraps up my chat with some of the team behind Exoprimal. While it’s not the game that I’d normally gravitate towards, I can’t help but feel excited to see how things play out when it releases sometime next year in 2023. There are, quite simply, not enough games with dinosaurs and I’m never going to turn one down.
Exoprimal is slated for release next year, in 2023. It’s launching for PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S.
