You probably know Exodus as the Matthew McConaughey game, as the actor’s involvement was the pillar on which the game was promoted when it was revealed in 2023. McConaughey plays C.C. Orlev in Exodus, but his role seems ultimately minor in the larger universe and story (though we could be wrong – time will tell). The arguably more interesting and affecting involved party in the game is James Ohlen. Ohlen worked at BioWare for more than two decades, had his hand on every franchise BioWare worked on and created, and was the developer’s senior creative director at the time when he left to lead Archetype Entertainment with Wizards of the Coast and help build the universe of Exodus. Ohlen was later joined by additional former BioWare members, including Drew Karpyshyn, a writer on many BioWare projects, and Chad Robertson, who worked on BioWare’s live-service efforts.
Alongside seeing extended gameplay for Exodus, we also received a presentation from Karpyshyn, Robertson, and the game’s director, Chris King. I was impressed by the overall effort to create something grand in scale, even beyond the game. There are already two Exodus prequel novels from author Peter F. Hamilton, an animated short film on Amazon’s Secret Level show, a tabletop game, and more on the way. Wizards of the Coast is putting a lot of effort into the fiction, and, thankfully, the game, which feels like it is being billed as the culmination of all this table-setting, looks solid.
Considering the lineage, it’s no surprise that Exodus looks a whole lot like Mass Effect, which I offer as a compliment. Exodus is a sci-fi third-person RPG shooter with affecting narrative choices, mortality mechanics, and deep lore. You play as Jun Aslan (who can be male or female) about 40,000 years in the future. They are a Traveler who explores myriad planets and ships while making choices about who they fight with, against, and who they romance. Jun is special because they can interact with ancient celestial technology, which, hopefully, can help save your home planet – which isn’t Earth, by the way – as it suffered environmental collapse millennia ago.
There are reminders of our world, though, beyond the human beings that persist. Familiar animals also appear, and they can talk. An elephant shopkeeper jokes about their bad memory, a giant wolf hangs out with the protagonist, there is a party member who is an octopus in a gigantic mech suit, and Karpyshyn teased a “very interesting raccoon” as being one of his favorite awakened animals.
The other major lore element of Exodus is time dilation, in which traveling to certain planets can make time move faster back home. In the story, maybe only a few hours have passed, but back home, it might be years.
Gameplay is of the cover shooter variety, but an impressive amount of tools are on display in one encounter shown. Jun grapple-swings between platforms and turns temporarily invisible to sprint between safe cover points and sneak up on enemies for stealth kills. Jun can also use hacking tools, but we haven’t see much of that yet. Along with standard guns, Jun can also throw a thruster grenade that rockets through the air to take out a powerful turret.
Seeing Exodus in action, it’s hard not to recall Mass Effect. The BioWare lineage aids that association, and it’s a third-person RPG shooter in space with narrative choices. I am sure we can all be forgiven for reaching for that comparison, but my hope is that when we get to play the game next year, it will be able to separate itself from BioWare’s landmark quadrilogy and develop an identity of its own. I look forward to giving it that chance.
