It was revealed Mass Effect spiritual successor, Exodus, will appear at the 2025 Game Awards, with first-time developer Archetype Entertainment further pulling back the curtain on the mysterious project and possibly even setting a release date. Hopes are high for the ambitious sci-fi action RPG revealed by Matthew McConaughey at The Game Awards in 2023.
McConaughey's involvement (he's slated to play a character named CC Orlev in the game) isn't the only reason audiences are excited. Exodus. Perhaps most exciting is the involvement of several key BioWare developers: Archetype Entertainment was founded by former BioWare employees Chad Robertson and James Ohlen, both of whom were heavily involved in seminal works such as Dragon Age and Mass Effect. Ohlen and Robertson are joined by head writer Drew Karpyshyn, who wrote the stories for the first two Mass Effect games and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. This line-up of genre figures for the new RPG gave audiences reason to be excited; indeed many hope so Exodus will fill Mass Effect-shaped hole in their hearts.
What is Exodus about?
Roughly 40,000 years in the future, humanity has conquered the stars and colonized millions of planets in the Omega Centauri cluster, thousands of light-years away from an environmentally devastated Earth. Humanity reached Omega Centauri around 18,000 AD and spent millennia spreading among the stars, settling on habitable planets and waiting for more arkships from Earth. According to time ExodusAs the campaign begins, humanity diverges and leads its own evolution into a number of different intelligent species, collectively called the Celestials.
20,000 years is a long time: empires rise and fall, cultures flourish and fade, there are golden ages and dark ages, and humanity is forever changed. Due to the uneven pace of the arrival of arkships, many human groups find themselves in these strange, alien worlds of the unknown and are often subjugated by stronger and more advanced celestial races.
Around the year 41,500 AD, a long-delayed arkship lands on a moon called Lidon, formerly inhabited by a celestial race called the Detenir. Several hundred years later, a Lydon mercenary named Orion Aslan becomes a renowned traveler – an interplanetary treasure hunter in search of ancient celestial technology called Remnants, which is used to advance Lydon society and ward off the technovirus known as Rot. Through his deeds and leadership, Orion becomes revered and loved, establishing the Aslan dynasty to rule over the now flourishing Lydon society.
Orion fuses human and celestial DNA to create Jun Aslan, Exodus' protagonist. When Jun is still a child and his father is away on a Traveler mission, his half-brother Gideon Aslan usurps the throne of Orion and declares himself the new ruler of the Aslan dynasty. This forces Jun to flee Lidon, though he still follows in the footsteps of his Wanderer father. Due to his celestial heritage, he has unique abilities that he tries to use to save Lidon from the Rotmi.
Exodus Companion Characters
Like its spiritual predecessors, Exodus will feature travel companions that the player will bond with. Archetype Entertainment has released information on two companions so far, with more news to come before release.
Tom Vargas
Described as a “charming drifter”, Tom Vargas is a victim of time. He once explored the galaxy with a legendary traveler named Max, with whom he allegedly had some sort of romantic relationship. During one mission, Tom and Max were being chased by enemy forces, prompting Tom to put Max in an escape pod and try to lead the enemies away. During his flight, he used an advanced interstellar transportation device called the Heaven's Gate, which facilitates near-light speed travel. He traveled back to Lidon, but due to time dilation he arrived decades after Max. From his point of view, the journey seemed like mere days.
They are very reminiscent of the gates of heaven Mass Effect'with Mass Effect Relay, used to travel at the speed of light, but Exodus complicates this theoretical technology with the hiccup of time dilation.
Elise Charroux
Elise Charroux, a former gang member from 23rd century Earth, is a combat and weapons expert who fights in a mechanized exosuit. As a “Sleeper”, she spent millennia in suspended animation, still haunted by memories of Earth's later years. She is described as brave, loyal and indispensable in battle.
CC Orlev, Matthew McConaughey's character, is shrouded in mystery, though he appears to play a narrator-like role.
Celestial Factions
The Celestials, who have evolved far beyond the humans of the current Earth, have almost godlike abilities compared to Tom and Elise. There are several distinct celestial races and civilizations, but here are the three that were the main focus Exodus“so far marketing:
- Crown Celestials: The oldest of the Celestials, the Imperial Celestials of the Crown Domain, also called the Crown Celestials, are a psychic humanoid race. They control six star systems in the Poseidon Nebula and control billions of citizens.
- Elohim: The creators of Heaven's Gate, the Elohim, were a major power in the centaur group for thousands of years before they mysteriously disappeared. Their technology, still remarkable, played a key role in bringing peace, trade, and fruitful communication between Centaur civilizations after the most tumultuous years of the cluster.
- Domination of Mara Yama: Horrifying Giger-like creatures, these Celestials are inherently anti-social, rejecting the laws of the Elohim that the rest of Centaur civilization abides by. They are known to commit atrocities, preying on members of weaker human races, extracting emotions and memories from them before finally killing them.
Exodus game
Third person shooting
Much like Mass Effect before that Exodus is a real-time third-person shooter. Players will be tasked with dispatching all manner of enemies, including Koven created by Mara Yama and the Awakened, Earthlings enhanced with supernatural physical and intellectual abilities. Jun's unique abilities allow him to connect with Celestial technology and give him access to special abilities: footage from the pre-alpha game shows Jun freezing enemies in place and using things like a kinetic blast.
Versatility seems to be an important part of the combat sandbox. ExodusThe latest gameplay trailer shows Jun crouching, rolling, sliding and hooking out of harm's way, hopefully adding a sense of speed and verticality to encounters. Jun is also shown using stealth, suggesting that indirect approaches to combat are also viable.
Choice based gameplay and time dilation
In another parallel to its BioWare counterparts, Exodus will allow the player to drive the story through key decisions. However, Exodus is unique due to the aforementioned narrative element of time dilation, which forces players to jump years forward in time and see the far-reaching results of decisions they may have made moments ago. If done well, it could make for a much more compelling choice-based narrative than something like Mass Effectwhich is smaller in scope.
Will Exodus have a romance?
With Jun being completely customizable and supporting characters playing an important role in the story, one could imagine Exodus contains some kind of romantic system—and one would be correct. Unfortunately, not much is known about how romance will actually work in the game, although lead writer Karpyshyn has hinted that the player's romantic choices can have a big impact on the story.
