For a particular breed of science-fiction enthusiast, the announcement of Exodus stood as the biggest news from a recent gaming awards ceremony. It's worth noting, those very fans might not have grasped its full implications during the initial showcase.
Exodus, the debut title from a recently established studio filled with former talent from a famous RPG developer, was first announced a couple of years prior. At the latest event, the development team provided an projected release window of 2027, accompanied by a spectacle-filled trailer. Prior to this reveal, the studio's leadership discussed some of the authentic scientific theories that underpin for the game's universe: relativistic time effects, genetic alteration, and galactic expansion. These are all suitably heady ideas, which are inherently challenging to express in a brief, cinematic trailer.
“It's a shame some of those intriguing and new ideas were highlighted in the trailer. What I perceived was ‘standard man in space,’” wrote one viewer. Another replied, “All I got was ‘we have a well-known space opera RPG at home.’” Responses in fan hubs were similarly divided.
The trailer's focus clearly is logical from a commercial perspective. When striving to stand out during a marathon onslaught of game announcements, what has broader appeal: A group debating the intricacies of theoretical science? Or massive robots exploding while other war machines emit plasma from their visors? However, in choosing spectacle, the developers neglected to include the more nuanced details that make Exodus one of the more exciting concept-driven games in development. Let's break it down.
Does Exodus feature aliens? Perhaps. It depends. Look at that scene near the opening of the trailer, depicting a bipedal figure with metallic skin and metal components merged into their form. That was certainly an alien, right? Ultimately hinges on your stance regarding one of the game's major thematic dilemmas: If you applied incremental change reasoning to the human genome, is what remains still a human being?
“We want the Celestials... for a player who isn't invest considerable amounts of time into learning the lore, to still understand the fundamental idea that they're evolved humans, understand that they’re an opposing force you have to deal with... But also, at the end of the day, make sure it's engaging and that they're compelling and that they function effectively to fight against,” explained the studio's general manager.
Grasping how these non-human beings aren't strictly aliens requires wrestling with enormous expanses of both the cosmos and temporal progression. Time dilation — the Einsteinian theory that time moves differently for high-velocity objects — is an operative scientific basis of Exodus’ science-fiction trappings. Here are the fundamentals: Humanity evacuates a desiccated Earth in the 23rd century for a distant corner of the Milky Way. Due to time dilation, some human voyagers arrive centuries before others. Those early arrivals extensively engineered their genetic sequences and assumed the “Celestial” moniker.
“There’s multiple tiers of evolution. The people who got to the Centauri cluster first... had many thousands of years of evolution into the Celestials... They really see unaltered humans as fundamentally unevolved, lesser, not really worthy for the dominant positions of society,” stated the game's story head.
Exodus is set approximately 40,000 years in the future. Consider that scale — that's the equivalent of all of recorded human history repeated ten times over. Now imagine what humans would become if they spent ten entire human histories advancing the boundaries of genetic manipulation. You would never recognize the outcome as human. You might very well believe you're looking at an alien. The most fearsome branch of Celestial, known as the Mara-Yama, can take diverse forms. Some possess sharp teeth and appendages and stand enormously tall. Others are protected in armored plating. According to supplementary lore, when Mara-Yama travel between stars, their physical forms can break down into little more than a mass of tissue attached to a head.
Among the pyrotechnics, beam attacks, and battle bears, you might have noticed snippets of otherworldly 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 near-light speed. This all seems beyond human achievement, the kind of tech ascribed to a Type 3 civilization. Yet, these are further examples of elements that seem alien but are ultimately derived in our species' own ascension.
Beyond the core development team, the Exodus lore is being crafted by what the narrative lead called a duo of “renowned authors.” One celebrated author has already published a lengthy novel set in the universe, with another planned, while another esteemed writer has penned a series of short stories. Incorporating such respected science-fiction writers into the fold years before the game's release has permitted the studio to develop a layered fictional universe as a backdrop for the game.
“It was really a joint venture. We had set some foundations, and working with him, he would have ideas... and we would work to see how they all integrated... With someone as established, you don't want to limit him. You want to give him room to explore,” the narrative director said of the collaboration.
One notable scene shows Jun appearing to shape the ground beneath him, fashioning stone into a makeshift bridge. This material, called livestone, is controlled by mental impulses from Celestials or Uranic humans — descendants of later human arrivals who were granted certain technologies by the Celestials. Since Jun demonstrates this ability, questions are raised about his status.
“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 “central mechanic of the game.”
The vast scale of the Exodus setting — both in physical space and temporal scope — means there is plenty of room for multiple stories to be told, drawing from the same universe without risking contradiction.
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 explores the connection between a Uranic human and a woman whose ship arrived an aeon later than planned, making Celestials completely alien to her experience. An episode of a television series recounts a poignant story about a father pursuing his daughter across star systems, with time dilation causing profound effects on their family; by the time he finds her, she has lived many years.
The game itself is centered on “Jun’s story,” set on the planet Lidon — a world largely abdicated by Celestials that has become a human stronghold. A consuming plague known as “the Rot” has begun eating away at everything, including vital life support systems, and Jun must harness his unique powers to {find a solution|stop
Elara is a seasoned gaming journalist with a passion for slot mechanics and player strategies.
