Inside Exodus, Archetype's Ambitious New Mass Effect-Like RPG Revealed at the Game Awards

During The Game Awards on Thursday, Archetype Entertainment revealed Exodus — a brand-new RPG starring Matthew McConaughey. Drawing inspiration from Mass Effect and Knights of the Old Republic, its central conceit is that you are a Traveler with the power to save humanity, but that you are subject to the effects of time dilation, meaning that years, decades, and even centuries can pass in the matter of minutes.

Archetype Entertainment has an intriguing pedigree. It was founded by James Ohlen, whose resume includes serving as a designer on Knights of the Old Republic and Dragon Age: Origins, among other BioWare classics. He’s joined by numerous other developers with experience working at BioWare, Naughty Dog, and other major developers.

Speaking with IGN, Ohlen as well as co-founders DebySue Wolfcale and Chad Robertson shed additional light on the long-awaited RPG, which was first teased back in 2020. They talked about how the time dilation element works (“Now you can see the impact of your choices over the course of not just days or weeks, but years, decades, and even centuries,” Ohlen says), but also the combat and more.

Robertson says that players will be an underdog in this universe, and that the combat will reflect that.

“Our combat team is building encounters where multiple solutions are at hand for the player at all times because we want the player to be both thinking tactically minute to minute, but also strategically about how they’re going to solve problems in combat,” Robertson says. “And there’s some tools built into our combat systems that are going to help players with that. And we’ll elaborate on those over time as well. That’s about all we’ll share for today. But ultimately giving players that hopefully offer an advantage in solving, finding ways to exploit enemy weakness, and having a hope of success in the battles that they’ll fight throughout Exodus.”

Exodus will also take inspiration from Indiana Jones, with the Traveler exploring planets in search of artifacts that can help save humanity. Robertson teases something called the “Orion’s Gauntlet,” a customizable tool hat provides players with “some unique powers that’ll actually grow with you throughout the game.” It’s useful not just for combat, but for exploration as well.

“[Artifacts] serve as a bit of a lock and key mechanic for us where they’ll allow us to have players go back to revisit the planet they visited before and have access to areas they couldn’t reach previously,” Robertson explains. “And so we’re maximizing content reuse in a nice way where players will get to see more of exotic locations that they visited, but for a good reason with respect to their growing palette of experiences as they move through the game.”

Naturally, Exodus will also have companions.

“We love RPGs and games that have companions with you. We think that’s a powerful way to help tell a story and also bring unique game mechanics into the experience,” Robertson says. “Trust us that we’ve got a fine set of friends and allies that are going to help you on your journey throughout the experience in Exodus…We understand and respect how important companions can be to players in games of this style because we care about them and want to build relationships with them. But for us, they’re featured in literally every game pillar that we’ve talked about so far, going from combat to exploration.”

Read on for more in the rest of the interview, including info on space combat, the potential for early access, and more. Exodus is under development for Xbox, PS5, and PC, and does not yet have a release date.

I think it’s interesting that you’re not working on an established IP. How did you sell Wizards of the Coast on letting you do your own thing under their umbrella?

James Ohlen, Co-Founder, Studio Head: I didn’t want to get back in. But then I got the invite, so I went up to Seattle. I remember the night before I was like, “Ah, f*ck, I don’t want to get back to video games. I’m just burnt out on, but I’m going to give them my pitch.” And so I gave them my pitch, which is pretty, well, “It has to be in Austin. I get to pick the people.” Anyways, and I want to create a new IP, because as much as I love Dungeons and Dragons, and by the way, I don’t think there’s a person on earth who loves Dungeons and Dragons as much as I do, I didn’t want to make another Dungeons and Dragons game. I wanted to make something new.

And anyways, they said yes to everything. I was like, “What? No, I’m back in video games!”

The great thing about Wizards of the Coast is they have a lot of experience in different areas, but they don’t have experience in video games. So they help us in places where they’re experts, but there’s not the executive team that has to come and tell us what to do. So it’s been great.

Also, a lot of my friends have started up their own studios where they own the studio. I personally am more of a creative who I don’t need to own a business, and I know that as soon as you’re owning a business, you have all the stress of that plus the game. So this allows us to focus on the game, and so far it’s been a great relationship.

I know you shared a Founders Program, and I’m just wondering if this includes an early access opportunity similar to what Baldur’s Gate 3 did?

DebySue Wolfcale, Global Brand Director: That’s a great question. Right now we don’t have anything like that, but I think it’s more about just we’re really early in the cycle still, so I can’t say that we will never have something like that. But no, it is not part of the Founders Program.

I have to say, speaking for myself, Early Access really seemed to pay a huge number of dividends for Baldur’s Gate 3. I’m sure you’re paying attention.

DW: Yes, I think you’re right. I think they did a great job in that area, and they really rallied the troops early on. So it’s definitely something we look at and we see the value. And as I said, I think just in our past lives, we recognize the value of that early adopter community, and I’m sure we’ll continue to think about that more.

JO: The other great thing is we have [Baldur’s Gate 3 director Swen Vincke] to talk to. Because he’s part of the same family, I get to talk to him, ask him for advice, because he’s at the forefront of video games right now. He just released one of the biggest releases in the world. In terms of early access, he’s given me all the rules. You do this, you don’t do that, and so many others. DebySue knows him as well. But it’s great to have someone like that who we can lean on and ask questions, and who wants us to succeed, even though he really doesn’t get any benefit from it. But whatever. He loves video games.

DW: Like a big brother.

JO: Yeah, he’s like a big brother. Anyways.

If you don’t mind me asking, what was the single biggest piece of advice that Swen gave you?

JO: Oh, I can’t tell you that. I would get killed. Well, he’s just a great guy. Well, Baldur’s Gate 3 obviously is… I’m glad it was very successful, because that universe has a lot of meaning for me. Even though I don’t want to do any more video games because, yeah. Swen, him and Larry have put their stamp on it, and I should stop talking about Baldur’s Gate 3 now.

The other great thing is we have [Baldur’s Gate 3 director Swen Vincke] to talk to. Because he’s part of the same family…

But let’s talk about Baldur’s Gate 3 for a moment.

JO: There you go.

It’s an interesting time for RPGs, as Baldur’s Gate 3 shows, and I think Baldur’s Gate 3 showed how much people can really love reactivity and a sense of ownership over the world, and a sense of scale and a sense of that the world is truly organic. Baldur’s Gate 3 really excelled at all of those things, and I’m just wondering what’s it been like to watch all of that happen from your perspective? Is it intimidating?

JO: No, not really. Well, they’re awesome. They’re like, what, 500 people in the studio now? What they’ve done is they’ve done the Divinity: Original Sin, which gave them the template, and then they did more work on that, which basically gave them all of the technology and tools and people and everything else to be perfectly. They were the best people to do Baldur’s Gate 3. That team was made to make that game, and they did a great job with it.

We want to do a similar trajectory in that this is going to be our first game. We’re establishing IP. We know that we’re competing against games like Baldur’s Gate 3, but we’re not going to compete against it or, say, Starfield or other games in ways that we’ll just lose. We want to make sure that we’re competing in a way where our strengths are being shown. That doesn’t mean that we’re not going to do new stuff. If Exodus is super successful, which we want it to be, Wizards of the Coast is going to be like, “We want sequels, and we want this, and we want…” So there’s going to be a chance to do all sorts of things.

But with this first game, because we know games are very difficult, especially role-playing games, we’re focusing on single player. That was actually one of the things I was surprised Wizards of the Coast were fine with, because we are just a single player game for this first iteration. We don’t dislike multiplayer games. Chad and DebySue had their beginnings in massively multiplayer games, and I think I still hold the record being the game director on one of the most expensive massively multiplayer games. So we know multiplayer, but we’re keeping our focus on a game that is about time violation, big choices, and… Anyways, I think I’ve said everything on that.

Yeah, the reactivity aspect of it, it’s a compelling pitch. It’s hard to conceptualize in my mind how all of this will unfold.

JO: The good thing is, because we have so many people who worked on games where there’s choices, we know all the pitfalls and everything else. And it is complicated, but it’s definitely doable. You can have a 300-page book that’s basically details on all of the choices you can make.

All of them, right there.

JO: Yeah, yeah, but now it changes. Because one of my philosophies in development is you ought put it down on paper with the realization that it’s all going to change in the future, but if you don’t put it down on paper, then you’re just going to spin your wheels. [Points to massive reference guide.] This book’s already out of date, but the point being is we’re very aware of how difficult this is going to be. But that’s not a scary part for us. I think we’ve got that one down pat, and I will now move on.

Let me ask you a few more granular questions. Can you tell me the engine that you’re using?

CR: Sure. Yeah, yeah, we’re using Unreal Engine 5.

Unreal Engine 5. Okay. That’s what I thought, but I just thought I would get that confirmed. Your single player for this iteration, so this is the start of something for you.

Chad Robertson, Co-Founder, General Manager, Executive Producer: A franchise. Yeah. We’ve always viewed Exodus as a franchise. I think like James talked about, there’s opportunities there for us to do a lot more after this first iteration.

JO: Yeah. Actually, one of the things in the way Wizards of the Coast is looking at it is they have two fantasy IPs that are very successful, but they don’t have a science fiction IP that’s very successful, so hopefully we’re going to be that one, and then lead to all kinds of other things.

I’m sorry again for bringing up Baldur’s Gate 3, but it’s in the news. I think the moment that Baldur’s Gate 3 really took off in the hearts and minds of its fans was the moment when IGN.com wrote the story that you could have bear sex with the Druid character. It really revealed to everybody just how thirsty that game was. So I’m asking: will Exodus go as far as Baldur’s Gate 3?

JO: I don’t think we’re going to let you have sex with the… I won’t reveal a character. But actually the funny thing is when I learned about that, because Chris Cox had said, “You can be rated M if you want.” He told us you can be rated M. Next time I talked to him, I was like, “So you really meant rated M?” But we’re not going… we want to create a universe that is immersive. Yes, we are leaning more towards mature storytelling, but we’re not about anything gratuitous. It’s more what works for the story we’re telling.

How many endings do you think there’ll be in this?

JO: What we want is for when a player gets to the end for them to describe their experience to their buddy and their buddy to go, what the heck? That’s not even anywhere close. That’s what happened with your world? And your companion characters did what? I think we can give that experience.

Okay. I have three questions left. Question one, is there space combat?

JO: There’s lots of space combat. Just kidding. There’s no space combat. DebySue and Chad, just like their faces fell.

More Normandy-like Mass Effect kind of situation?

JO: Yeah, we’re more about, because we are leaning, we want the universe to be fun, but we also are leaning more into the hard science. Yeah, we do have, you are controlling characters from third person and you’re controlling a squad, but you’re not going to be controlling space battles. It is science fiction, so space battles could exist, but yeah, that’s not what the gameplay is focused on.

All of you had such distinguished careers at BioWare, and I’m just wondering what some of the key experiences and key lessons you learned from that experience that you’re taking into the creation of Exodus.

JO: Humility. That’s actually one of the values. One of our values of our studio is humility, and I think it’s huge because it’s something that [BioWare co-founders Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk] lived by. Also the other thing that we really lived by is empowerment. That’s something that Ray and Greg did really well, which was they gave people the rope to do what they wanted to do and let them make mistakes and everything else. We’re really trying to create that kind of environment. It benefits us because there’s so many creatives who we get to work with that are amazing and they want to continue working with us because when we say, yeah, you get to do what you want to do, and they do it and then we’re like, yep, sounds good. We love it. They’re like, what? You’re not going to tell us do a whole bunch of stupid changes? Nope. Nope.

One of our values of our studio is humility, and I think it’s huge because it’s something that [BioWare co-founders Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk] lived by.

[Blur Studio co-founder] Tim Miller is much better than any of us here. When he said, I want to do this, we were like, we’re going to. He helped build the IP because we were working with him. We weren’t telling him to just do something. We wanted them, and they do more stuff than just that, to be involved in the project at a level where they’re passionate about it. That’s what we, because we have the freedom, we’re able to do that with all the different people we’re working with. They get to be involved in the creation of a science fiction universe and get super passionate about it, and we’re not bullshitting them.

They’re just waiting for the other shoe to drop, but it never does drop…The more freedom you give, you’re going to get more passion, more creativity.

Kat Bailey is IGN’s News Director as well as co-host of Nintendo Voice Chat. Have a tip? Send her a DM at @the_katbot.