The latest PlayStation State of Play was brief, but it was packed with announcements. Square Enix unveiled a variety of new titles, while other developers like Housemarque provided updates on their own games, but out of everything that appeared at the State of Play, Exoprimal was possibly one of the most remarkable. Revealed at the very start of the State of Play, Exoprimal is a new action game from Capcom in which players don mech suits to battle huge tides of dinosaurs that are rampaging through the game’s near-future world after falling from mysterious portals in the sky.
Longtime Capcom fans watching the Exoprimal reveal trailer may have drawn a comparison to another Capcom IP: Dino Crisis. During the late 1990s and early 2000s, Capcom’s survival horror and action-adventure series Dino Crisis pitted players against dinosaurs pulled into the modern-day through time travel. Although the franchise has laid dormant for many years, Dino Crisis has managed to retain a following, and many have hoped that Capcom will return to the IP someday. Exoprimal is clearly a new IP, but it has some commonalities with Dino Crisis that ought to get fans of Capcom’s previous franchise interested in the new game.
Comparing Exoprimal to Dino Crisis
The most obvious connection between Exoprimal and Dino Crisis is, of course, the use of dinosaurs as basic enemies. In Exoprimal, players will fight off massive hordes of raptors and seemingly engage in boss battles with particularly large prehistoric creatures. The Dino Crisis series hasn’t always been quite so action-oriented, but Exoprimal still has some similarities with Dino Crisis 3, which left the franchise’s survival horror roots behind in favor of persistent futuristic combat. The premise behind Exoprimal could be similar to Dino Crisis too; Capcom hasn’t gone into detail about the new IP’s portals yet, which could very well take inspiration from Dino Crisis’ time travel and Third Energy.
Beyond dinosaurs, however, Dino Crisis fans ought to keep an eye on Exoprimal’s cast. Dino Crisis often involves a specialized team of soldiers fighting against the oncoming dinosaurs, and Exoprimal looks like it has a similar band of heroes. There’s even an athletic red-haired woman among them who looks an awful lot like Regina, the beloved protagonist of the original Dino Crisis and Dino Crisis 2. While the broader Dino Crisis character roster won’t make an appearance in Exoprimal, it seems likely that Exoprimal will feature a lot of characters who play similar roles to Regina’s costars, simply by virtue of a similar game premise.
The Heir to Dino Crisis
Capcom has stated in no uncertain terms that Exoprimal isn’t connected to the Dino Crisis universe. In spite of their mutual dinosaur menaces, these two IPs are separate. Sadly, that means Dino Crisis will probably remain dormant for the foreseeable future. After all, Capcom has little reason to start working on an entirely different dinosaur-centric franchise while Exoprimal is on the way. For now, Dino Crisis lovers will just have to give Exoprimal a chance when it releases in 2023.
Exoprimal certainly looks like a unique addition to the PlayStation library, as well as a solid new take on the Dino Crisis concept. Dino Crisis 3’s futuristic setting may have involved more advanced technology than the original game, but Exoprimal goes even farther thanks to its mech suits, which look like they all come with unique abilities that’ll help keep the dinosaurs at bay.
Hopefully, Capcom leans into the mech suit concept and finds other ways to incorporate the setting’s advanced technology into Exoprimal’s gameplay. By building up further sci-fi elements around the game’s dinosaur onslaught, Capcom could make Exoprimal a very interesting new incarnation of Dino Crisis, even if it’s not a true member of the Dino Crisis family.
Exoprimal releases in 2023 for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
