Archetype's Exodus: An Exploration for the True Science Fiction Enthusiast.

For a particular breed of science-fiction enthusiast, the revelation of Exodus stood as the most impactful moment from a recent gaming awards ceremony. Curiously, those very fans may not have grasped its full significance during the initial showcase.

Exodus, the debut title from a new studio staffed with veteran talent from a legendary RPG developer, was first teased a couple of years prior. At the latest event, the development team provided an targeted release window of 2027, accompanied by a action-packed trailer. Ahead of this presentation, the studio's leadership discussed some of the authentic scientific concepts that serve as the basis for the game's universe: time dilation, human augmentation, and galactic expansion. These are all appropriately complex ideas, which are notoriously tough to communicate in a brief, marketing-driven trailer.

“I wish some of those intriguing and fresh ideas were highlighted in the trailer. What I perceived was ‘standard man in space,’” wrote one viewer. Another responded, “All I got was ‘this is like a well-known space opera RPG at home.’” Feedback in fan hubs were correspondingly varied.

The trailer's strategy clearly is logical from a commercial perspective. When trying to stand out during a marathon barrage of game announcements, what has broader appeal: Scientists discussing the finer points of relativity? Or giant robots exploding while more war machines fire plasma from their faces? However, in prioritizing visual bombast, the developers omitted to include the quieter elements that make Exodus one of the more intriguing hard sci-fi games in development. Let's delve deeper.

The Question of Humanity

Does Exodus feature aliens? Perhaps. It depends. Look at that image near the start of the trailer, showing a being with metallic skin and cybernetic components merged into their form. That was definitely an alien, correct? Ultimately hinges on your stance regarding one of the game's major thematic dilemmas: If you applied gradual replacement reasoning to the human biology, is what is left still human?

“We want the Celestials... for a player that isn't dedicate large amounts of time into learning the backstory, to still grasp the core concept that they're transhuman descendants, see that they’re an foe you have to confront... But also, at the end of the day, make sure it's fun and that they're impressive and that they play well to fight against,” explained the studio's head.

Grasping how these otherworldly beings aren't technically aliens requires wrestling with enormous expanses of both the galaxy and temporal progression. Time dilation — the relativistic effect that time moves differently for faster-moving objects — is an fundamental scientific basis of Exodus’ science-fiction trappings. Here are the fundamentals: Humanity leaves a depleted Earth in the 23rd century for a remote corner of the Milky Way. Due to time dilation, some human voyagers arrive ages before others. Those firstcomers radically altered their DNA and adopted the “Celestial” title.

“There’s multiple tiers of evolution. The people who arrived at the Centauri cluster first... had numerous millennia of years of evolution into the Celestials... They really see unaltered humans as sort of primitive, lesser, not really suitable for the dominant positions of society,” stated the game's lead writer.

Exodus is set approximately 40,000 years in the future. Ponder that timeframe — that's essentially all of recorded human history multiplied ten times over. Now contemplate what humans would look like if they spent ten entire human histories pushing the frontiers of biotech. You would not possibly recognize the result as human. You might very well believe you're seeing an alien. The most fearsome lineage of Celestial, known as the Mara-Yama, can adopt various forms. Some possess fangs and appendages and stand enormously tall. Others are encased in chitinous shells. According to expanded universe lore, when Mara-Yama travel between stars, their physical forms can atrophy into little more than a mass of tissue attached to a head.

Technology and Lore

Amidst the explosions, beam attacks, and battle bears, you might have glimpsed snippets of advanced technology in the trailer. The protagonist, Jun Aslan, uses a shiny machine that emanates a violet glow. A spaceship jets into a portal and is gone at incredible speed. This all seems beyond human achievement, the kind of tech attributed to a highly advanced civilization. Yet, these are further examples of elements that look alien but are ultimately derived in mankind's own evolution.

Beyond the core development team, the Exodus lore is being authored by what the narrative lead called a duo of “literary legends.” One bestselling author has already published a doorstopper novel set in the universe, with another planned, while another award-winning writer has penned a series of short stories. Incorporating such legendary science-fiction minds into the world years before the game's release has allowed the studio to develop a dense fictional universe as a foundation for the game.

“It was really a collaborative effort. We had set some basics, and working with him, he would have ideas... and we would work to see how they all meshed... With someone of that caliber, you don't want to handcuff him. You want to give him latitude,” the narrative director said of the collaboration.

One notable scene shows Jun seemingly manipulate the ground beneath him, forming stone into a instant bridge. This material, called livestone, is controlled by brainwaves from Celestials or augmented enforcers — descendants of later human arrivals who were allowed specific technologies by the Celestials. Since Jun shows this ability, questions are raised about his origins.

“Jun's not specifically a Uranic human... Jun is sort of a unique version, for want of a better term,” clarified the writer, noting that the ability to interact with Celestial technology is a “important element of the game.”

The immense scale of the Exodus setting — both in distance and the timeline — means there is plenty of room for various stories to exist, using the same core lore without risking interference.

Tales of Time and Loss

Although Exodus has been on the radar for a couple of years and is still distant, several stories have already begun to be told within its universe. The first major novel delves into the connection between a Uranic human and a woman whose ship arrived tens of thousands later than planned, making Celestials totally alien to her experience. An episode of a television series depicts a poignant story about a father chasing his daughter across star systems, with time dilation imparting life-altering effects on their family; by the time he finds her, she has aged many years.

The game itself is centered on “Jun’s story,” set on the planet Lidon — a world primarily left by Celestials that has become a bastion. A consuming plague known as “the Rot” has begun destroying everything, including vital life support systems, and Jun must use his Celestial-like powers to {find a solution|stop