Mass Effect veterans' new sci-fi RPG Exodus gets action-packed gameplay trailer featuring gunfights with aliens and, uh, a giant grizzly bear
Archetype Games' Exodus looks like a true Mass Effect spiritual successor
Exodus, the debut game from a team of BioWare veterans under Archetype Games, has debuted a new gameplay trailer showing off the third-person combat system.
Archetype first announced Exodus right about a year ago at The Game Awards 2023. The studio is led by BioWare stalwart James Ohlen, who was the original Dungeon Master of the pen-and-paper campaign that spawned the Baldur's Gate franchise. He was also designer on Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and game director on Star Wars: The Old Republic, staying with BioWare until 2018.
The new Exodus gameplay trailer, packed to the brim with Mass Effect vibes, shows our profoundly attractive protagonist traversing various surfaces using a grappling hook and doing battle with aliens and some sort of giant, armored grizzly bear. The combat looks like a fairly straightforward and conventional mix of third-person shooting and melee battling, but it seems satisfying enough.
The story is set in a universe where humanity has fled a dying Earth only to find itself struggling for survival in a hostile alien galaxy. It will have branching narrative paths that lead to different endings depending on player choice, which should be familiar to fans of the developers' previous work. Although we know Mass Effect 5 is officially in development at BioWare, Exodus sure seems like something of a spiritual successor to the series, which just means fans of story-driven sci-fi RPGs are eating good.
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After scoring a degree in English from ASU, I worked as a copy editor while freelancing for places like SFX Magazine, Screen Rant, Game Revolution, and MMORPG on the side. Now, as GamesRadar's west coast Staff Writer, I'm responsible for managing the site's western regional executive branch, AKA my apartment, and writing about whatever horror game I'm too afraid to finish.