Exodus: A Deep Dive for the Hardcore Science Fiction Enthusiast.

For a specific breed of science-fiction enthusiast, the announcement of Exodus stood as the most impactful news from a prestigious gaming awards ceremony. Interestingly, those very fans could have missed grasped its full importance during the initial showcase.

Exodus, the first project from a new studio filled with former talent from a legendary RPG developer, was first announced a couple of years prior. At the latest event, the development team provided an projected release window of 2027, accompanied by a spectacle-filled trailer. Ahead of this presentation, the studio's leadership detailed some of the real scientific concepts that form the foundation for the game's universe: relativistic time effects, human augmentation, and galactic expansion. These are all appropriately complex ideas, which are particularly tough to communicate in a brief, cinematic trailer.

“I wish some of those innovative and novel ideas were featured in the trailer. My takeaway was ‘generic man in space,’” wrote one commenter. Another replied, “My impression was ‘this is like a well-known space opera RPG at home.’” Reactions in community spaces were correspondingly divided.

The trailer's focus clearly is understandable from a business perspective. When striving to make an impact during a lengthy onslaught of game announcements, what has broader appeal: Scientists debating the finer points of Einsteinian physics? Or enormous robots blowing up while other giant robots fire plasma from their armor? However, in choosing loud action, the developers neglected to include the subtler concepts that make Exodus one of the more intriguing concept-driven games coming soon. Let's delve deeper.

The Question of Humanity

Does Exodus feature aliens? No. That's complicated. Look at that shot near the start of the trailer, depicting a being with gray-blue skin and technological components integrated into their body. That was certainly an alien, right? In the end hinges on your perspective regarding one of the game's major existential inquiries: If you applied Ship of Theseus reasoning to the human biology, is what results still a human being?

“We want the Celestials... for a player not intending to invest significant amounts of time into learning the lore, to still grasp the fundamental idea that they're evolved humans, understand that they’re an antagonist you have to deal with... But also, ultimately, make sure it's engaging and that they're cool and that they are satisfying to encounter,” explained the studio's head.

Comprehending how these otherworldly beings aren't by definition aliens requires understanding immense expanses of both the galaxy and time. Time dilation — the scientific principle that time moves differently for faster-moving objects — is an key hard line of Exodus’ science-fiction trappings. Here are the essentials: Humanity abandons a desiccated Earth in the 23rd century for a far-off corner of the Milky Way. Due to time dilation, some human colonists arrive ages before others. Those early arrivals extensively engineered their biology and adopted the “Celestial” moniker.

“There’s multiple tiers of evolution. The people who arrived at the Centauri cluster first... had tens of thousands of years of evolution into the Celestials... They really see baseline humans as sort of primitive, lesser, not really suitable for the higher tiers of society,” stated the game's lead writer.

Exodus is set about 40,000 years in the future. Consider that immensity — that's the equivalent of all of human civilization repeated ten times over. Now imagine what humans would evolve into if they spent ten entire human histories advancing the frontiers of genetic manipulation. You would absolutely not perceive the outcome as human. You might certainly believe you're observing an alien. The most vicious lineage of Celestial, known as the Mara-Yama, can assume multiple forms. Some possess sharp teeth and blades and stand towering tall. Others are encased in chitinous shells. According to supplementary lore, when Mara-Yama travel between stars, their physical forms can degenerate into little more than a mass of tissue attached to a head.

Building a Sci-Fi Canon

Among the pyrotechnics, lasers, and combat creatures, you might have noticed snippets of otherworldly technology in the trailer. The protagonist, Jun Aslan, interacts with a shiny machine that radiates a purple glow. A spaceship jets into a portal and is gone at relativistic velocity. This all seems outside human understanding, the kind of tech attributed to a Kardashev Scale-topping civilization. Yet, these are further examples of wonders that look alien but are ultimately derived 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 celebrated author has already published a doorstopper novel set in the universe, with another planned, while another esteemed writer has written a series of short stories. Incorporating such established science-fiction talent into the world years before the game's release has allowed the studio to develop a layered fictional universe as a backdrop for the game.

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

One interesting scene shows Jun seemingly manipulate the ground beneath him, fashioning stone into a temporary bridge. This material, called livestone, responds to neural commands from Celestials or a specific human subclass — descendants of later human arrivals who were granted limited technologies by the Celestials. Since Jun demonstrates this ability, speculation arises about his origins.

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

The immense scale of the Exodus setting — both in physical space and temporal scope — means there is ample room for diverse stories to be told, using the same core lore without creating interference.

Tales of Time and Loss

Although Exodus has been in development for a couple of years and won't arrive, several stories have already told within its universe. The first major novel explores the connection between a Uranic human and a woman whose ship arrived tens of thousands later than planned, making Celestials utterly alien to her experience. An episode of a streaming show tells a poignant story about a father chasing his daughter across star systems, with time dilation resulting in life-altering effects on their family; by the time he finds her, she has aged a lifetime.

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