Exodus somehow looks even more like Mass Effect than it did before it dropped a big gameplay reveal at the Future Game Show

Exodus, the sci-fi action RPG in development at Archetype Entertainment, dropped an extended gameplay video today at the Future Games Show. It delivers the most up-close look at the game yet—and for better or worse, it’s not shaking the allegations that it looks a lot like Mass Effect.

The hero in Exodus is Jun Aslan, who, unlike the highly trained and experienced military operative Commander Shepard, is a deep space salvager and all-around nobody. Kind of a loser, really—but they also just so happen to possess a genetic trait that allows them to wield uniquely powerful technology, including an upgradeable gauntlet that enables all sorts of special abilities.

As Jun progresses along their adventure, they’ll be confronted with various moral choices, like ‘fight through enemy forces and spare the lives of innocent bystanders, or blow the airlock, get it over with quickly and safely, and kill everyone’—decisions which will put them on the path of the Paladin (good) or the Immortal (somewhat more self-interested, let’s say). Character progression and abilities will be impacted by the character’s alignment, as will interactions with the world and the characters in it.

If all that sounds familiar, so will the companions introduced in the trailer. Renowned xeno-archaeologist Phaedra Nath looks to be set up as Exodus’ take on Liara T’Soni but with far more nervous energy, which I assume will smooth out as the character grows and matures over the course of the game and possible romantic entanglement. Tom Vargas is a steady, mature hand with a tendency to caution, who strikes me very much as a Kaidan Alenko type; the mech pilot Elise Charrous is basically Jack with hair; Salt, the Awakened octopus, is Mordin Solus with a quick detour into KotOR for a dash of HK-47; and Houston, the Awakened wolf, is Wrex. Your mileage may vary on these comparisons, but that’s how I see them line up.

The one wild card is CC Orlev, “the mysterious space cowboy” voiced by Matthew McConaughey. I’m not sure how he fits into the supporting cast puzzle—he looks like kind of a Ben Kenobi type, but that’s the wrong space opera. Maybe he’s your Garrus?

The video also shows a bit of the hub city of Persepolis, where humans and Awakened hang out during their downtime, and touches on the concept of time dilation—a few hours here is a few years (or decades) there—which will apparently play a significant role in the game’s narrative.

It all looks perfectly fine, and as much as a call on it can be made at this still-early point, I’m sure Exodus will work out to be a good third-person sci-fi action game. I just can’t shake the feeling that I’ve seen this all before, and not just as a distant, indistinct sense of familiarity: Some of this stuff is pretty spot-on.

In a slightly altered timeline, this could be a Mass Effect: Andromeda screenshot:

(Image credit: Archetype Entertainment)

A few more new screens:

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One of the big points of frustration I’m feeling is that Exodus has gone from the 2024 Mara Yama teaser, which was great, to this fairly generic-looking third-person ARPG. I said the same thing a few months ago, when snippets of Exodus gameplay first started to drop: They look fine, but not nearly as good as those early teasers about alien horrors who want to eat our minds, or humanity’s eagerness to exploit the weak when the going gets tough.

That’s interesting and meaty; this is, well, a lot like Mass Effect, isn’t it?

This of course is not the final word on the whole thing: Exodus isn’t set to arrive until early 2027, which leaves plenty of time to show us how it will stand apart from the crowd. Hopefully it will.