Exodus: A Deep Dive for the Hardcore Futurism Fanatic.

For a distinct breed of science-fiction enthusiast, the unveiling of Exodus stood as the most significant news from a prestigious gaming awards ceremony. It's worth noting, those very fans may not have grasped its full implications during the initial showcase.

Exodus, the first project from a freshly formed studio populated with veteran talent from a famous RPG developer, was first teased a couple of years prior. At the latest event, the development team provided an early release window of 2027, accompanied by a fast-paced trailer. Before this presentation, the studio's leadership detailed some of the authentic scientific concepts that serve as the basis for the game's universe: relativistic time effects, genetic alteration, and interstellar colonization. These are all suitably heady ideas, which are particularly difficult to communicate in a brief, showy trailer.

“I wish some of those innovative and new ideas were highlighted in the trailer. My takeaway was ‘stereotypical man in space,’” wrote one observer. Another quipped, “The vibe I got was ‘this is like a well-known space opera RPG at home.’” Responses in community spaces were similarly varied.

The trailer's approach clearly makes sense from a marketing standpoint. When attempting to capture attention during a hours-long deluge of game announcements, what has broader appeal: Scientists discussing the intricacies of theoretical science? Or massive robots exploding while other mechs fire plasma from their visors? However, in opting for visual bombast, the developers neglected to include the subtler elements that make Exodus one of the more promising concept-driven games in development. Let's explore further.

The Question of Humanity

Does Exodus contain aliens? No. The answer is nuanced. Consider that shot near the start of the trailer, featuring a humanoid with ashen skin and metal components integrated into their flesh. That was definitely an alien, correct? In the end hinges on your perspective regarding one of the game's core existential inquiries: If you applied incremental change reasoning to the human genome, is what remains still a human being?

“We want the Celestials... for a player not intending to dedicate significant amounts of time into learning the lore, to still comprehend the basic premise that they're transhuman descendants, recognize that they’re an antagonist you have to face... But also, importantly, make sure it's engaging and that they're cool and that they play well to challenge,” explained the studio's general manager.

Understanding how these alien-seeming beings aren't by definition aliens requires grappling with enormous expanses of both the galaxy and time. Time dilation — the scientific principle that time moves differently for high-velocity objects — is an key hard line of Exodus’ fictional framework. Here are the fundamentals: Humanity evacuates a dying Earth in the 23rd century for a far-off corner of the Milky Way. Due to time dilation, some human travelers arrive millennia before others. Those early arrivals radically altered their DNA and assumed the “Celestial” title.

“There’s various stages of evolution. The people who got to the Centauri cluster first... had many thousands of years of evolution into the Celestials... They really see baseline humans as essentially primitive, lesser, not really worthy for the upper echelons of society,” stated the game's narrative director.

Exodus is set about 40,000 years in the future. Ponder that scale — that's the equivalent of all of our documented past repeated ten times over. Now contemplate what humans would look like if they spent ten entire human histories mastering the frontiers of biological science. You would not possibly recognize the result as human. You might certainly believe you're looking at an alien. The scariest branch of Celestial, known as the Mara-Yama, can take multiple forms. Some possess fangs and appendages and stand nine feet tall. Others are encased in exoskeletons. According to expanded universe lore, when Mara-Yama travel between stars, their physical forms can break down into little more than a fleshy blob attached to a head.

A Universe of Ideas

Amidst the pyrotechnics, beam attacks, and combat creatures, you might have noticed snippets of otherworldly technology in the trailer. The protagonist, Jun Aslan, uses a shiny machine that produces a purple glow. A spaceship flies into a portal and vanishes at relativistic velocity. This all seems outside human comprehension, the kind of tech ascribed to a Type 3 civilization. Yet, these are further examples of concepts that appear alien but are deeply rooted in our species' own evolution.

Beyond the core development team, the Exodus lore is being expanded by what the narrative lead called a duo of “sci-fi giants.” One acclaimed author has already published a massive novel set in the universe, with another planned, while another prolific writer has contributed a series of short stories. Incorporating such legendary science-fiction writers into the world years before the game's release has allowed the studio to develop a rich fictional universe as a foundation for the game.

“It was really a joint venture. We had set some basics, and working with him, he would have ideas... and we would work to see how they all fit together... With someone as established, you don't want to limit him. You want to give him latitude,” the narrative director said of the collaboration.

One interesting scene shows Jun seemingly manipulate the ground beneath him, fashioning stone into a makeshift bridge. This material, called livestone, is controlled by brainwaves from Celestials or a specific human subclass — descendants of later human arrivals who were granted specific technologies by the Celestials. Since Jun exhibits this ability, one might wonder about his nature.

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

The sheer scale of the Exodus setting — both in distance and the timeline — means there is plenty of room for multiple stories to exist, pulling from the same universe without creating interference.

Tales of Time and Loss

Although Exodus has been publicly known for a couple of years and isn't releasing, several stories have already told within its universe. The first major novel delves into the connection between a Uranic human and a woman whose ship arrived an aeon later than planned, making Celestials utterly alien to her experience. An episode of a streaming show depicts a heartbreaking 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 decades.

The game itself is centered on “Jun’s story,” set on the planet Lidon — a world primarily abandoned by Celestials that has become a bastion. A consuming plague known as “the Rot” has begun eating away at everything, including essential life support systems, and Jun must harness his unusual powers to {find a solution|stop