Exodus narrative director dives into its inspirations from Interstellar to Star Wars to, yes, Mass Effect

While there's good reason to associate Exodus with Mass Effect, it's more than the fact that they are both, at the end of the day, space sci-fi RPGs. There's also the strong BioWare DNA; Archetype Entertainment founder and former BioWare creative James Ohlen may have left the studio last year, but it doesn't take much digging to find a lot of BioWare experience is still there. In fact, the three developers I spoke with directly for our Exodus Big Preview have BioWare on their resume.

But the inspirations for Exodus are much wider and varied than that. In fact, when I ask about inspirations for the upcoming video game – mechanically, narratively, whatever other -ly you can think of – during my recent visit to Archetype Entertainment's studio in Austin, Texas for my Exodus hands-on preview, Mass Effect isn't really mentioned until I explicitly bring it up.

To the stars

"I think the team has a very wide variety of backgrounds and interests, things like that," says Drew Karpyshyn, narrative director on Exodus at Archetype Entertainment. "For me personally, I've always been into what we always refer to as the golden age of sci-fi movies, so films like the classic Star Wars, the sort of Star Trek experience, of course. With time dilation, we have a strong influence from Interstellar."

While the inspirations from Star Wars or Star Trek might be broader and more thematic, the ways in which Interstellar has influenced Exodus are more obvious. In fact, after what I have seen and played of Exodus, calling the movie Interstellar "a strong influence" might actually be an understatement.

Time dilation as a concept is such a big part of Exodus that it has its own official page on the game's website. Basically, to put it in the simplest possible terms, less time passes for those traveling at near lightspeed. Or rather, more time passes for those not doing so. There's a lot of science behind that concept, but that's the short version. This is also a major and impactful plot point in Interstellar, as it happens.

Not to put too fine a point on it in terms of inspirations, but also a bit on the nose: Interstellar star Matthew McConaughey also voices the near-mythical Exodus character C.C. Orlev. Who is C.C. Orlev? What is C.C. Orlev? The developers know, but they're not telling quite yet.

"I don't want to spoil too much about C.C. Orlev – voiced by Matthew McConaughey, as I think is well known by this point," says Karpyshyn when I ask about the elusive (rather than illusive) character. "Really sort of a mysterious mentor-type figure. Again, I don't even want to say too much about the background, but I think players are going to enjoy running into C.C. at various times in the game, and we've got some interesting twists and surprises that come along as well."

To boldly go

Part of the inspirations being so varied, according to Karpyshyn, is the simple fact that the team was able to begin at zero and move from where. What hadn't already been explored thoroughly? What new ground was there to tread? Or, perhaps more accurately, what space?

"One of the great things about Exodus is we got to start from scratch, so we got to decide exactly what we wanted to build," says Karpyshyn. "We were able to construct the universe from the ground up. We decided what were the things we wanted to focus on. One of the keys was this adherence to relativity, so nothing travels faster than speed of light, which opens up the door for us to explore things like time dilation, things that maybe haven't been explored in the narrative or the scope of other games."

"And when you start from scratch, you can go anywhere, so it's very daunting, and you spend a lot of time whittling it down and thinking of what works, what doesn't," he continues. "You add pieces, you take pieces, you throw them in, you throw them out, you remix them, and that's one of the reasons developing something like this takes so long. It is a new IP; it's a new universe; it's a new experience that has the spirit of the things we love, the spirit of all the games and movies and books that have inspired us throughout our lives, but we're putting our own spin on it, our own fresh take. You spend a lot of time getting that right before you even begin to approach the other elements, like the gameplay, the story, things like that."

In terms of the overall look and feel of Exodus and the narrative within, there's plenty of Dune to go around. Not only are the worlds often as inhospitable and downright hostile as Arrakis, at least what I've seen of them, but the interactions with ancient technology and the design of Celestial architecture are evocative of the sci-fi masterpiece as well.

"We also look to some of the more modern classics, like Dune, very inspiring for the films," says Karpyshyn. "And then, if you want to look at the books, obviously an archetype of the genre, so these are the kind of things that I grew up with, and the kind of things that inspired me. We try to take the spirit of those and present it in a way that people will recognize the core elements, but we again put our own fresh spin on it and have done our unique take on those."

Massively effective

None of that is to say that Mass Effect doesn't serve as an influence on Exodus, but Karpyshyn looks at it on a different sort of scale than people are likely going to assume. It's not so much a particular, specific inspiration as it is a spiritual one.

"I was the lead writer on the first two Mass Effect games, so it's natural people are going to make these kinds of connections," says Karpyshyn when I explicitly ask about inspirations being drawn from Mass Effect. "For me, the biggest connection is just the spirit of the concept of making your own universe, making a new unique universe from scratch, which is what we did with Mass Effect and what we're doing with Exodus."

"Obviously people are going to see similarities; they also draw on similar touchstones of the genre of science fiction, but we've added a lot of unique elements," continues Karpyshyn. "Things like the Awakened are very unique to our universe. The idea of the Celestials and who they are, where they came from, their origins, is, I think, a really interesting take.

"And then, of course, the element of time dilation, which changes the structure of how societies get built and how the different factions will interact with each other," he adds. "You have to think on a much grander scale, which pushes us more towards something like Dune, for example. So you take all these elements and mix them in, and really, to me, Exodus is its own unique thing, but you know, I don't deny that there are bits and pieces of all these other elements in it."

Our Exodus Big Preview continues looking at the upcoming sci-fi shooter RPG in the days ahead! If you can't wait for 2027, you can check out our best RPG games ranked for what to play right now.