Archetype Entertainment might be an entirely new studio, but with its ranks full of industry vets from BioWare, Naughty Dog, and more, it certainly seems to have the talent to back its AAA ambitions. The studio revealed its first game – AAA sci-fi action RPG Exodus – in December last year, turning the heads of more than a few Mass Effect fans, and has been doling out new details on it in bits and pieces ever since.
Recently, the studio put out a new Q&A video, with Archetype Entertainment co-founders James Ohlen (who’s also executive creative director) and Chad Robertson (who’s also executive producer) revealing new details about Exodus’ setting.
In particular, the duo spoke about the inhabitants of Exodus’ universe. Set in the Omega Centauri cluster, Exodus will see the remnants of humanity – who fled from a dying Earth – facing off against the Celestials, a dominant species that descended from ancient Earth humans. However, they won’t be the only non-human species you will encounter in the game.
According to Ohlen, though all species in Exodus will have “a terrestrial origin”, owing to the way they have evolved over tens of thousands of years, in the game, they will be “incredibly strange, wondrous, and weird creatures”.
“Usually you refer to an alien as something that evolved on a planet other than Earth,” said Archetype Entertainment co-founder and executive creative director James Ohlen. “Everything in the universe of Exodus has a terrestrial origin. However, they’ve evolved over tens of thousands of years, so some of them have evolved into incredibly strange, wondrous, and weird creatures that are often much weirder than the classic aliens you might see in other science fiction franchises.
“It also includes things such as the Awakened- intelligent animals from Earth. There’s all kinds of cool stuff that you’re going to be able to run across, interact with, and obviously fight as well. So yeah, there is a huge diversity of species other than just Celestials.”
Ohlen offered a little more information on the aforementioned Awakened animals, revealing that several “alien” species in Exodus will have evolved from what were once animals on Earth.
“Exodus has a diverse cast of strange creatures, intelligent [and] non-intelligent, and as I said before, all of them have a terrestrial origin,” he said. “That doesn’t mean that all of them are evolved from humans, as some of them will be evolved from what we call Awakened animals- animals whose intelligence has been enhanced, and then over the course of tens of thousands of years, they’ve changed into creatures that sometimes in no way look like the animals they evolved from.”
And will players have the opportunity to play as one of these non-human species, or will Exodus only let you play as a human protagonist? Executive producer Chad Robertson didn’t give a concrete response, instead only saying the answer is “a bit of yes and no.”
“The answer is not trivial, it’s actually a bit of yes and no,” said Archetype Entertainment co-founder and executive producer Chad Robertson. “We’re super excited about some of the things that you’re going to be able to do as a player, but we’re not going to reveal all the details for a little while.”
Exodus is in development for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. You can learn more about the game in our interview with Narrative Director Drew Karpyshyn through here.
