Going into the Savage Gauntlet mode of Capcoms’ Exprimal, I had tempered expectations. The core game became a chore far earlier than it should have and I honestly couldn’t imagine what a PvPvE game about slaying hoards of dinosaurs needs to propel itself forward. Unfortunately, Savage Gauntlet is not a good case study for moving in the right direction.
To start at the beginning, the mode was touted as an endgame mode. Anybody who has ever played an MMO, or any game with armor stats and levels should know what that is supposed to mean. We are talking about high-stat and high-level challenges designed for players that have completed the main content of an experience and need something to keep them coming back. The thing is, Exoprimal doesn’t have any of that so why they HAVE endgame content is a mystery.
Exosuits can level up as you play the game but they do not offer any stat increases outside of a few modules you unlock that offer minimal buffs. There is no increase to your health, your power, or your defense. The shame of this is that while exosuits can level up to 100, about 80 percent of those levels offer nothing of consequence.
This means that while you have to beat the ENTIRE storyline to unlock the Savage Gauntlet mode, there is no reason to suspect a player who only has two matches under their belt would be just as viable as a player with 100 hours. Which begs the question, why is it even an endgame at all?
The matches in the mode play out almost identically to that of the core game mode with only a few differences, and all of them hurt the mode rather than help it. The first is that the mode is only available for brief stints, with it opening for a few days, then closing again for days, before opening up again with its next iteration. The issue here is the game DESPERATELY needs a second experience so the fact that it is time sensitive is a huge detriment.
The second issue is they are set matches. Unlike the Dino Survival mode which queues you in for a range of matches across multiple levels, there is only one structure to a Gauntlet match that is going on. The core gimmick is that the mode is a time trial where you attempt to beat it as fast as you can. The lack of stat tracking in the game, or any action-packed hoard busting for that matter, make this a moot and honestly tone-deaf feature.
The hope was that in lieu of an enemy team, the hope (or at least my hope), was they would play heavier into the waves of dinosaurs the trailers promised. You again have waves like in the main game, with almost all of them very similar in numbers of enemies to defeat, with more waves focusing on the larger dinosaurs. There are fewer waves in this game mode, however, that is before the lack of a final round given that there is no other team.
The first iteration of this built up to its big finale of defending an easily destroyed VTOL ship from two Carnotaurus enemies, which roughly comes down to luck as to whether or not they get distracted before just barrelling toward the VTOL and destroying it in ten seconds. My best time was maybe 3 minutes because my entire team hoarded their ultimate abilities and popped them the second these dinosaurs spawned. You’re just as likely to get an uncoordinated team in which your gonna have a bad time, or a coordinated team in which the high damage output isn’t enough to kill the Carnotaurus before it hits the objective three times which is enough to kill it.
All of this culminates in me asking the question, was the game not finished at launch? The mode uses the same maps, a relatively similar wave structure, and doesn’t feel endgame at all. Upon beating the main game you are greeted with a message touting that you were accepted to participate in the Savage Gauntlet, and if you beat it when I did a message that the mode wasn’t yet available. The developers made us wait for a game mode that, in all honesty, feels like it should have been there at launch, and designed to complement the existing game mode as opposed to pretending it is unique.
This underwhelming experience isn’t helped by the Exoprimal content roadmap either. As it currently stands, this is the only mode they have announced for the game, despite having given some ideas on variants of suits and dinos coming to the game in Season 2 and Season 3. The biggest thing the game wants you to know (they used up time during conferences to announce these) is that season 2 will feature a Street Fighter collaboration, with season 3 featuring a Monster Hunter collaboration.
With most Capcom games this is par for the course but the big issue here is that Monster Hunter and Street Fighter don’t have the serious identity crisis Exoprimal does. They were enjoyable and had years to become well-oiled money-makers before getting themed content became a staple for them during Capcom Showcases. The fact that we don’t have a clear path to content and features before we have crossovers is troubling.
I didn’t have high expectations for Savage Gauntlet but I was hoping for a step in the right direction, however small that may have been. All the mode does, in the end, is add nothing to the experience. The worst thing Exoprimal’s first addition could do is imply that the game has nothing more to say and that is exactly what it did.
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