Matthew McConaughey's interstellar role helped him understand the Big Hook of Exodus

Matthew McConaughey is present Exodus was always one of the easiest things to point out in the game. Archetype Entertainment has little else to say about its upcoming sci-fi RPG, and the fact that McConaughey is playing the mysterious CC Orlev would still be enough to turn heads. However, his involvement also makes more sense the more the Archetype talks about Exodus is actually about.

GameRant recently attended the Future Games Show briefing hosted by Archetype Entertainment and Wizards of the Coast, where they talked about some of the inspiration behind Exodusand Interstellar it naturally came about due to the game's use of time dilation as a core mechanic. This connection with McConaughey seems to have clicked immediately, as did his role Interstellar gave him an easy way to understand what the Archetype was trying to do with Exodus. Given how much the game relies on travelers leaving home and returning years or even decades later, it's hard to imagine a more obvious bridge between actor and game.

Exodus' time dilation hook has an obvious interstellar connection

Interstellar is undoubtedly the film most people think of when the concept of time dilation comes up. The Miller's Planet sequence is the simplest example, as Cooper, Brand, and Doyle are only on the planet briefly, but Romilly spends over 20 years waiting for them on the ship. The wave is an immediate danger, but the scene hits much harder once he returns and realizes how much time is gone. Then, later, Cooper, watching years of messages from his children at once, drives the point home even more. IN Interstellartime is presented as something that people lose and can never get back.

Ultimately, that's what it does Exodus' use of time dilation so convincing. Games have done a lot with time travel, alternate timelines, and choices that affect the future, but Exodus he seems to be doing something a little different with this idea. Travelers can leave home on a mission and return years or even decades later, making the act of leaving feel important even before anything happens. For a choice-driven RPG, this is a huge hook and by Exodus game director Chris King, Interstellar was one of the clearest reference points for how powerful this idea can be:

Interstellar is probably the most obvious example of time dilation in popular media, but we put our own spin on it. And that's kind of what we like to do is kind of focus on those kinds of things, take the things that we loved, take the spirit of what made them exciting for us as kids and as adults, and put it all together and create something fresh and new that evokes the same kind of emotions that we like in the entertainment that we love.

What makes it all the more interesting Exodusbut is that time dilation won't be something players watch happen to someone else on screen. In the film, the audience will feel the cost of this through and through Interstellar's characters, but the story is still something they only witness. Exoduson the other hand, it has a chance to make the players feel some responsibility for those costs, since they're the ones sending Jun to the cluster and living with what time takes from him while he's gone. This could hit the impact even harder as Lydon's passing years will be part of the journey they choose to take.

Of course, time dilation is also the reason for Matthew McConaughey's involvement Exodus it makes as much sense as it is obvious that the name is recognizable. IN InterstellarCooper (McConaughey) is a man who leaves home because he believes it's the only way to save him, and the cost of that decision is measured in years of never returning with his children. Exodus it's obviously telling its own story, but that underlying emotional idea is closely related to what the Archetype is doing with Travelers, time dilation, and the people left on Lydon. According to Archetype general manager Chad Robertson, the connection was clear to McConaughey almost immediately:

We shared that Matthew McConaughey was in the game, but the time dilation element when we first spoke to him, he immediately understood why we were interested in working with him. And so that was a really nice connection that just brought that and helped drive it home in the overall experience.

In other words, for ExodusMcConaughey is more than just a famous name to attract attention. Interstellar they've already put him at the center of a story where going further into space meant losing time with the people he was trying to save, so it makes sense that the idea behind Exodus clicked for him so fast. There's a lot more about CC Orlev that Archetype hasn't revealed, but with time dilation sitting in the middle ExodusMcConaughey feels like a pretty natural fit.

Time dilation is central to Exodus' choice-based gameplay

Player selection has always been a big part Exodusespecially with so many former BioWare developers involved. For a game like this, it's not enough to let the player choose dialogue options or decide how the mission ends. These choices need to feel like they really matter to the world, the characters, and the person Jun becomes along the way. Exodus seems to use time dilation as one way to do this, as the consequences of decisions don't have to wait just a few minutes later. They may wait years or decades. According to the lead narration by Drew Karpyshyn:

We want to look at choices at the meta level, which is where we get into things like time dilation. It really helps bring home the effect. It improves your decisions. When you go on an exodus, you can see how things play out on a longer time frame. That's why exodus is so important in our game and makes such a big deal, right? This is why you want to really consider what's going to happen before you go on an exodus. You want to make sure you are prepared. You want to make sure everything is in place because you're going to be gone for a long time, and sometimes you don't necessarily always know how long you're going to be gone, so by the time you come back, it could be years, decades, and obviously things have changed. So you're kind of trying to prepare and set up contingency plans and hope that things will be in place when you get back, and you can see the decisions that you've made play out over time when you go back to the exodus.

The truth is that most choice-driven RPGs deal with consequences on a much smaller timeline. A companion approves or disapproves, a quest changes direction, a character lives or dies, or later conversations confirm what happened. Exodushowever, he works with a much larger window of time, giving the Archetype a chance to make a decision as if they have years to settle into the world before Jun sees the result. It will be interesting to see how far the game actually goes after launch, but as far as RPG concepts go, this is one of the most interesting in recent memory.

McConaughey's involvement makes more sense the longer Archetype talks about it Exodus trying to do with time dilation. Interstellar helped popularize the idea by making it emotional, and Exodus tries to take the same concept and put some of it in the player's hands. Whether it works will depend on how well Archetype goes, but with McConaughey's involvement, time dilation at the center of his story, and decisions with consequences that may not fully play out until years or decades have passed, Exodus it has a sci-fi hook that makes it worth watching.