Exoprimal preview - Love, death, and the diplodocus

"Hello viewers, I am Ivy the Android," says the Power Ranger lookalike that walks into view during the first trailer of March 2022's PlayStation showcase. "I'd like to share today's dinosaur forecast."

A strange sight, for sure, but it's a compelling one. The opening sting of a PlayStation showcase lured viewers into the year 2043, making them know to expect the unknown - but few knew how positively insane the following performance would be. Mech suits construct themselves. They dive out of military planes to touch down in a desolate American city. And as a wormhole erupts in the sky, hundreds of thousands of pteranodons pour into the streets, flocking and fleeing through the city, snarling and snapping with malicious intent. What the f**k is going on?

Little did we know it, but we were about to bear witness to one of the strangest, most tongue-in-cheek shooter trailers we've seen in years, with Exoprimal being revealed to be the latest game built in the RE Engine and adopting the World War Z approach of 'flood the screen with baddies'. Exoprimal is coming, and it's going to be one hell of a ride.

Everybody's going to the raptor

Though parallels were naturally drawn to Dino Crisis, the only dinosaur shooter that could outgrow the crispy aesthetics of Turok, a vastly different aesthetic and playstyle lies in wait in Exoprimal. For starters, as we leapt into the game's beta, one (of hopefully many) game mode was available to players - Dino Survival. The game pits two-player teams against each other with bots to pad out lobbies, on separate plains of existence, with a series of objectives dished out to both at the same time.

The key objective of the game is to fulfil each of these tasks, whether they be moving payloads or capturing points, all while pterosaurs, velociraptors and even the boss-grade triceratops invade and attempt to keep you from your successes. It's certainly interesting to pit players against each other while also maintaining a co-op style of play, but it's one that stays pretty great fun - but that's mostly down to the dinos themselves.

The game doesn't seem to have any problem in putting its processing power to the test, unleashing seemingly hundreds of bullet-sponge dinos at a time for players to shred, slash or blast through, and it evokes a feeling of true power for the player, made even more palpable by the game's huge roster of playable exosuits.

Extinction event

The suits themselves offer a playstyle for any type of player, with melee, gunplay and defensive suit types spanning the Assault, Tank and Support categories of suits. The types of suit all contribute to gameplay that feels truly customisable, with different suits pairing up with some better than others - but the best part about it all is that players can shoes to change their suit on the fly, with their player character leaping out of their existing suit to wait for their next one to materialise.

Once activated, they can activate the suit, and shift from an agile slasher to a brutish tank should the battlefield change beyond their abilities. It's this customizability that makes the experience feel so truly versatile, and though you may imagine that shooting the same wall of pteranodons could end up dragging, choosing to take them down with a rotary gun rather than giant fists alters the experience dramatically.

It's clear even from the limited playtest that the game's focus on sheer fun isn't to be derailed by the specifics of Exoprimal, with the menu's AI character dropping strangely sweet one-liners, as your player character air-boxes and gears up for a difficult mission. A game with an absurd premise like this simply couldn't thrive without a tongue-in-cheek attitude, and it looks like it's going to deliver in spades.

Co-operative dino-mite

Combining high-stakes objectives with the joy of blasting baddies to bits, with something of a neo-Jurassic twinge, Exoprimal may be about to offer something you simply can't find elsewhere in gaming. The breakneck pace of battle with hundreds of entities pins you into focus, but not without offering the player to engage in any which way they choose. It's an impressive balance that isn't often struck with games in the RE engine, but it looks like this dino shooter has got the equilibrium right.

While the extent of Exoprimal still remains to be seen, there is incredible potential to be found here - but the longevity and sustained interest will lie in just how efficiently players can rally their friends to squad up for it. To hope to replace the likes of Warzone and VALORANT in a standard friend group's evening rotations is bold, of course, but Exoprimal demands that its players really give it a chance, and there is absolutely no doubt that if it can maintain the level of fun found in Dino Survival across all of its modes, then we could be in for something truly riveting. Blasting dinos has rarely felt so good.