Exodus, the debut of Archetype Leisure, a studio underneath the Wizards of the Coast umbrella stacked with ex-BioWare expertise, was first introduced in 2023. On the 2025 Recreation Awards, Archetype gave the RPG an early 2027 launch window in an action-packed trailer. Forward of the announcement, Polygon caught up with Archetype management to debate a few of the very actual scientific ideas underpinning the sport: time dilation, genetic alteration, galactic enlargement, and extra. All suitably heady ideas. All powerful to convey in a three-minute advert spot.
“I want a few of these fascinating and new concepts have been within the trailer. All I acquired was ‘generic man in house,’” one Polygon commenter wrote in response to our article. “All I acquired was ‘we have now Mass Impact at dwelling,’” responded one other. Suggestions on the sport’s official subreddit was equally blended.
The trailer’s strategy actually is sensible from a enterprise perspective. In making an attempt to face out amid a four-hour barrage of bulletins, what sells higher: A bunch of scientists debating the finer factors of Einsteinian physics? Or big robots exploding whereas different big robots shoot lasers out of their faces? However in going loud, Archetype uncared for to incorporate the quieter particulars that make Exodus one of many extra thrilling arduous sci-fi video games on the horizon. Let’s break it down.
Does Exodus function aliens? Sure. No. Type of? That shot close to the beginning of Exodus’ Recreation Awards trailer, of a humanoid with gray-blue pores and skin and metallic fused into their flesh, was undoubtedly an alien, proper? All of it will depend on the place you land on one of many huge philosophical questions posed by the sport: In case you utilized Ship of Theseus reasoning to the human genome, is what’s left nonetheless human?
“We wish the Celestials, for a participant that is not going to take a position important quantities of time into the IP to study it, to nonetheless perceive the core idea that they are developed people, perceive that they’re an antagonist it’s a must to face, perceive the impression of them on the general scope of the sport,” Archetype normal supervisor Chad Robertson advised Polygon in an interview this month. “But in addition, on the finish of the day, be certain that it is enjoyable and that they are cool and that they play nicely to struggle towards, when it’s a must to problem them, or cope with them, in selections that you just’re making.”
Understanding how these alien-seeming people aren’t technically aliens means grappling with huge expanses of each house and time. Time dilation — or the Einsteinian concept that point strikes slower for faster-moving objects — is an operative arduous line of Exodus’ science-fiction trappings. Polygon’s Exodus preview will get extra into the small print, together with how the idea impacts the RPG’s construction, however listed here are the fundamentals: People go away a desiccated Earth within the twenty third century for a nook of the Milky Means, the Centauri cluster, some 16,000 mild years away. Time dilation signifies that some people arrive there earlier than others. These people messed closely with their genetic sequences, and adopted the “Celestial” moniker.
“There’s totally different ranges of evolution. The individuals who acquired to Centauri first, the place the sport takes place, had many 1000’s of years of evolution into the Celestials and into various kinds of Celestials, taking totally different branches the place they kind of turned transhuman,” Exodus narrative director Drew Karpyshyn stated. “They actually see people as kind of primitive, unevolved, beneath them, not likely appropriate for the higher echelons of society, at greatest servants and slaves, [and] at worst, pests that should be managed or presumably even exterminated.”
Exodus is ready about 40,000 years sooner or later. Take into consideration the size there — that’s successfully all of recorded human historical past ten occasions over. Now contemplate what people would appear to be in the event that they spent, once more, ten total human recorded histories pushing the bounds of biotech and genetic manipulation. You’ll by no means acknowledge the outcome as human. You would possibly even suppose you’re taking a look at an alien. The scariest department of Celestial, a vicious line referred to as Mara-Yama, can take numerous varieties. Some have fangs and claws and are 9 toes tall. Others are coated in exoskeletons. In response to the official Exodus Encyclopedia tabletop companion information, when Mara-Yama journey between star methods, their “bones and limbs degenerate,” which means they float zero-gravity in starships as little greater than a fleshy blob of organs hooked up to a head.
“The common day-to-day individual would have a variety of bother referring to a celestial,” Karpyshyn stated.
Between the explosions and lasers and battle bears, you most likely caught snippets of otherworldly tech in Exodus’ Recreation Awards trailer. Protagonist Jun Aslan interacts with a chrome machine that emanates a purple, alien-like glow. A spaceship jets right into a portal and vanishes at near-light pace. All of these items appears past human comprehension, the kind of tech you possibly can solely think about achieved by a Sort 3 civilization on the Kardashev Scale, a number one theoretical framework in regards to the potential technological limits of spacefaring societies. (People aren’t even a Sort 1 civilization but.) However these are simply extra examples of stuff that appears alien however actually has its roots in humanity.
Past the Archetype group, Exodus canon is being crafted by what Karpyshyn referred to as a duo of “sci-fi giants.” Peter F. Hamilton has already revealed one doorstopper novel set within the universe with one other deliberate for 2026, whereas Adrian Tchaikovsky wrote a collection of quick tales for the sport’s web site. Bringing legit sci-fi royalty into the fold years forward of launch has allowed Archetype to develop a wealthy fictional universe upon which to construct a sport. (Hamilton’s first Exodus novel, The Archimedes Engine, is greater than 900 pages lengthy; the 2 tabletop tomes collectively run 600 pages.)
“It was actually a three way partnership,” Karpyshyn stated. “We had set some fundamentals, and dealing with him, he would have concepts of his and we’d work to see how all of them match collectively. With somebody like Peter Hamilton, who’s as gifted and established as he’s and has confirmed himself, you do not wish to handcuff him. You wish to give him a variety of freedom. And he was nice to work with so far as ensuring all the things match with our lore as nicely. So it was actually a collaborative effort.”
One key scene reveals Jun showing to control the bottom he’s strolling on, molding stone, as if by magic, to create a makeshift bridge. It is a silicate materials referred to as livestone, which responds to neural instructions from Celestials or Uranic people — a descendant of people who arrived after Celestials attained dominance over the area and have been granted use of sure applied sciences and skills to assist implement Celestial rule. Finn, a serious character in Hamilton’s novel, is a Uranic human. Since Jun displays the identical potential within the trailer, is he one too?
“Jun’s not particularly a Uranic human, as a result of these have been mainly created by Celestials to assist them, they usually’re type of restricted in what they will do. Jun is kind of a hacked model, for need of a greater time period,” Karphsyhn stated, earlier than declining to elaborate on account of spoilers, however did word the flexibility to work together with Celestial expertise is a “key a part of the sport.”
In response to Karpyshyn, The Archimedes Engine is ready roughly 300 or 400 years after the sport. The dimensions of Exodus’ setting — each bodily and temporally — means there’s loads of house for tales to exist, drawing from the identical codices and pulling on the identical thematic threads, with out risking overlap.
Though Exodus has been within the public eye for 2 years and gained’t be out for at the very least yet another, loads of tales have already been advised in its universe. The Archimedes Engine explores the connection between Finn and a lady named Ellie, whose arkship arrived at Centauri 24,000 years later than meant, which means she has far more in frequent with you or me than with anybody within the system; to her, Celestials actually would possibly as nicely be aliens. An episode of the Amazon Prime anthology Secret Degree tells the story of a father chasing his runaway daughter throughout the celebs, and the devastating results time dilation can impart on households; by the point he catches as much as her, she’s aged many years.
Exodus itself is “Jun’s story,” Karphshyn stated, and is centered round Lidon — a planet largely abdicated by Celestials that has grow to be the human stronghold of the cluster. A technological virus referred to as “the Rot” has began consuming away at all the things, together with vital life help methods, and Jun should use these Celestial powers to determine tips on how to clear up it.
“The beauty of our universe is it is so broad that we will inform different tales. So the story Peter Hamilton’s telling in his books, there may be related themes,” Karpyshyn stated. “And a variety of these themes will echo throughout them, however the tales are distinctive sufficient and may stand alone as a result of the universe is so broad and so deep and so expansive. You may inform so many various tales with out stepping on one another’s toes.”
Exodus will probably be launched in 2027 for PlayStation 5, Home windows PC, and Xbox Collection X.
