When the Exoprimal trailer started rolling on this morning’s PlayStation State of Play, I thought, for a wild moment, that Capcom might have come up with a wild new take on its classic survival horror franchise Dino Crisis.
I based this assumption on nothing more than the appearance of dinosaurs and the Capcom logo.
To discover it was an entirely new IP certainly wasn’t a letdown. There’s not enough new IP in AAA games today, and it’s always great to see more of it. However, boy was this trailer happy to lead me down the garden path for a minute. Then it turned into fighting robots punching T-rexes in the head and I said “Not this time.”
Don’t get me wrong, I’m down to wear a Gundam suit and put a raptor in a headlock. That sounds like a good time. I just got a little carried away and that’s on me.
Given Capcom’s recent interest in remastering its PSOne era Resident Evil games, the idea of a Dino Crisis reboot isn’t exactly a stretch. So clean is the overlap that an RE Engine remake of Dino Crisis already exists in my mind, fully realised. I know what it looks like and how it plays without Capcom ever lifting a finger.
Created by Resident Evil‘s Shinji Mikami, Dino Crisis always played second fiddle to its bigger, scarier sibling. It leaned into shlock horror, and a lingering interest in the Jurassic Park film franchise. I, of course, am a lifelong dinosaur obsessive and so it was right up my alley. Starting in 1999, Capcom pumped out three mainline games and a couple of spinoffs. The final title, Dino Crisis 3, was an Xbox exclusive that launched in 2003 to decidedly mixed reviews. After that, it disappeared off the face of the earth. Fans have begged Capcom to revive it ever since, but the publisher has remained reticent.
Fans continue to petition Capcom for a new entry in the series. The publisher’s most recent statement on Dino Crisis was a 2017 Twitter post from its lead development team. Asked if a new game was on the way, the account coyly replied “If a lot of people wish.”
My long wait for a Dino Crisis remake continues.
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