Anthem trends on JP Twitter after Exoprimal’s announcement

Japanese gamers just can’t forget about BioWare’s looter shooter Anthem. Even when Capcom announced the Exosuit-wearing dino-shooting action game Exoprimal during SIE’s recent State of Play broadcast, the word “Anthem” was trending on Twitter more so than “Exoprimal” or “Capcom.”

You would think the first thing that comes to people’s minds when seeing a “dinosaur shooter featuring a red-haired female character” from Capcom is Dino Crisis. In fact, press outlets such as Polygon, Game Rant, Engadget, and GamesRader+ mentioned the name in their articles, and many users referenced Dino Crisis in the comment section of Exoprimal’s English trailer and on social media. Some Twitter users in Japan did too, but the use of the word Anthem was more prominent.

Anthem is published by Electronic Arts and has nothing to do with Capcom. It’s not even in the same genre as Exoprimal, which is explained as a team-based PvPvE action game. Anthem is synonymous with exosuit-wearing third-person action games at this point, and the dinosaur shooting part is likely of secondary importance for those exosuit-hungry gamers.

We can see tweets from Japanese users saying, “I never thought Capcom would make a complete version of Anthem,” “Is this the Anthem we actually wanted to play?” “This news is a reminder of how much potential Anthem had and how it didn’t come to fruition,” and “Anthem is our hope and trauma, no wonder it trends every time an exosuit-wearing game gets announced.” People miss Anthem, or at least, the potential it had.

0.5秒で作った。後悔はしていない･･･
あんせむうううううううう！！！?#ANTHEM #EXOPRIMAL pic.twitter.com/sPVlYnnEAc

— えいん・へるやる/Einherjar/新人英霊VTuber (@ein_herjar_0602) March 10, 2022

Anthem was a hype train that crushed hard and never recovered. Many people saw potential, but it was severely over-hyped and unfinished. The loot system was fundamentally broken, the game was plagued with bugs, and quest design was monotonous and lackluster. The poor reception is apparent on both Metacritic and OpenCritic. That said, some players genuinely enjoyed the flying mechanic or the Javelin exosuit customization feature. There was some fun to be had, but the game drowned in a flood of negative reports and never managed to resurface.

Naturally, conversations surrounding Anthem tend to focus on how bad the game was. Japanese gamers are also well aware of the game’s severe issues, but even so, it seems like many of them can’t forget about the potential Anthem had.

I used to write articles about Anthem for the Japanese edition of this website and watched people’s reactions on social media as I played the game with hope and lament. I could see a great deal of interest in the game, although many of them had complaints about one aspect of the game or the other. Some people mourned when the Anthem Next, a reboot project, was canceled, while many still showed anger.

Anthem was a gamers’ dream that never came to fruition. A potential forever lost. Yet, looking at the reactions to Exoprimal, I get the sense that their state of mind has changed over time. It’s as if their anger has ceased to some degree, and they are eager to fill the void with a better version of Anthem. Their dream version of Anthem that they never got, whatever that may be.

According to Capcom, Exoprimal is a team-based action game with the primary game mode being Dino Survival, where “players form teams of five and contend with each other 5-on-5 in competitive PvE to be the fastest to complete missions while fending off relentless dinosaur hordes.” As you can see, it’s quite different from Anthem, so I don’t think it’ll fill the needs of users who yearn for an experience akin to Anthem. Nevertheless, it’s entirely possible that they would end up liking Exoprimal for what it is and manage to fill the void to some extent.

Capcom’s Exoprimal is set to launch for PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and PC (Steam) in 2023.