EXODUS — Time Might Be the Most Dangerous Thing in the Galaxy

Archetype Entertainment is stacked with former BioWare talent, including people responsible for some of the studio's most celebrated RPGs, and at first glance the DNA is obvious. Third-person gunplay. Companions. Romance. Dialogue choices. Strange alien worlds. A ship carrying you towards problems considerably larger than yourself. But after Game Informer's recent hands-on coverage, Exodus is beginning to look like something far more interesting than somebody simply trying to build another Mass Effect. Because in this universe, time itself is part of the gameplay.

40,000 YEARS FROM HOME

Humanity abandoned Earth thousands of years ago and has spread across distant star systems. You play Jun Aslan, a customisable male or female protagonist belonging to a rare group known as Travelers. Travelers can interact with ancient technology left behind by the Celestials — beings so technologically advanced that humanity's relationship with their creations borders on the religious. Jun's homeworld, Lidon, is dying. That sends you into the stars looking for Celestial technology powerful enough to save it. Simple enough. Except travelling between these places means approaching the speed of light. And relativity doesn't care that you're the protagonist. A journey that feels like days or weeks to Jun can mean years or decades passing on Lidon. Game Informer's hands-on describes missions where you leave people behind, travel into space, complete your objective and eventually return to a civilisation that has continued living without you. People age. Politics change. Technology develops. Relationships move on. And decisions you made before leaving may have grown into consequences you could never completely predict. That's the idea that suddenly makes Exodus fascinating. Most RPGs tell us our choices will change the world. Exodus intends to actually give the world enough time to change.

YOU CAN SEE THE FUTURE. SORT OF.

Jun possesses limited precognitive abilities. Before certain major "Breakpoint" decisions, the player can glimpse abstract fragments of possible futures. Game Informer's example involved the Logos, essentially an impossibly advanced Celestial repository of knowledge. Lidon could continue building its civilisation around Celestial technology, gaining access to greater knowledge but remaining dependent upon something humanity doesn't truly understand. Or Jun could use the Logos to reverse-engineer technology and push humanity towards independence — potentially sacrificing some technological progress in exchange for autonomy. Neither is presented as the obvious good ending. More interestingly, the consequences aren't simply represented by a morality bar. Lidon's civilisation develops across Culture, Science and Military values, while your decisions can simultaneously affect companions, future events and the society waiting for you when you return. So the question isn't simply: Was I good or evil? It's: What kind of civilisation did I accidentally build?

MORE THAN JUST A SOLDIER

Combat initially looks comfortably familiar: a third-person shooter with cover, weapons and squad abilities. Then Archetype starts adding toys. Jun can grapple and swing between elevated positions, temporarily cloak to cross exposed areas or initiate stealth kills, hack technology and deploy specialised equipment such as the very thruster grenades capable of rocketing towards hardened targets. The explosion was substantial and can blow a piece of cover to smithereens and has a blast radiud big enough to engulf multiple enemies, just the right combo of fun and lethal. Your companions are effectively another layer of the combat system. Take Suliman. His Shadow Step ability allows him to cloak, reposition behind an enemy and strike before disappearing again. His ultimate, Vendetta, attacks three enemies while applying a corrosive effect. And then there's Salt. Salt is an intelligent octopus. Who pilots a mech. With enormous weapons. Welcome to Exodus.

TALKING ANIMALS AREN'T A GIMMICK

One of the smartest things Archetype appears to be doing is resisting the urge to make its stranger ideas purely comic relief. The universe contains Awakened animals: animals engineered into larger, intelligent, long-lived beings that have become genuine members of civilisation. Game Informer's demo introduces Salt during an assault on the Traveler Launch Center, before later sending Jun to Khonsu, an orbital station inhabited by a society of enormous intelligent frogs known as the Kay. Yes. Space frogs. But here's where the worldbuilding becomes interesting. Khonsu isn't simply a bizarre biome designed to make a trailer memorable. The station protects Lidon by deflecting dangerous space debris, and the Kay are among the only beings capable of maintaining its Celestial machinery. They have engineers. Beliefs. Different personalities. Different attitudes towards humanity. One Kay casually reveals he's only two years old despite already being essentially an adult — another reminder that even biology in this universe has been warped by technology and time. That attention to seemingly unnecessary detail is exactly what makes a science-fiction world begin to feel like somewhere rather than simply somewhere to shoot things.

ENVIRONMENTS THAT ACTUALLY HAVE A PURPOSE

The environments shown so far aren't just pretty backdrops. The Traveler Launch Center establishes Jun's connection to their inherited powers while introducing Salt and eventually throwing the player against the enormous robotic Redeemer. Khonsu turns its architecture, Celestial machinery and unusual inhabitants into part of the mission itself. And between expeditions sits Persepolis, the hub city where players can reconnect with characters and deal with the consequences of their adventures. That structure matters. If Exodus works as intended, visiting a location won't only be about what is there. It will also be about when you return. Imagine leaving a settlement after helping one faction, disappearing into relativistic travel and returning decades later to discover that faction became the dominant political power. Or leaving somebody you love behind knowing that your next adventure might cost them twenty years. That is an extraordinary narrative weapon for an RPG to possess.

COMPANIONS HAVE THEIR OWN CLOCKS

Even Salt's story demonstrates this. She hasn't personally aged very much, but decades have passed on her homeworld during her travels. Eventually she wants to return. She knows the home she remembers probably no longer exists in the form she remembers it. Suddenly the eccentric octopus driving the giant mech isn't merely the game's funny companion. She's another expression of its central idea. What does travelling the galaxy cost when everyone you leave behind keeps living?

THE KOMA TAKE

Exodus looks familiar until you examine what Archetype is actually building underneath it. The shooting looks good. The movement looks good. The worlds are beautiful. The companions are wonderfully strange. But none of those things are why this game has our attention. It's the possibility that Exodus has found a way of making the oldest promise in RPGs — your choices matter — physically part of its universe. You aren't simply choosing what happens next. You're choosing something, disappearing for twenty years... …and coming home to find out what everyone else did with your decision. That could be special.