Exodus: The Ultimate Guide for the Dedicated Futurism Fanatic.

For a distinct breed of science-fiction fan, the announcement of Exodus stood as the most impactful moment from a recent gaming awards ceremony. It's worth noting, those very fans could have missed grasped its full importance during the initial showcase.

Exodus, the inaugural game from a freshly formed studio filled with veteran talent from a famous RPG developer, was first announced a couple of years prior. At the latest event, the development team provided an targeted release window of 2027, accompanied by a action-packed trailer. Prior to this reveal, the studio's leadership discussed some of the real scientific theories that serve as the basis for the game's universe: time dilation, genetic alteration, and interstellar colonization. These are all appropriately heady ideas, which are inherently difficult to express in a brief, cinematic trailer.

“I wish some of those fascinating and novel ideas were highlighted in the trailer. What I perceived was ‘standard man in space,’” wrote one commenter. Another responded, “My impression was ‘we have a well-known space opera RPG at home.’” Responses in online forums were similarly divided.

The trailer's focus clearly is understandable from a business perspective. When trying to capture attention during a lengthy onslaught of game announcements, what is more marketable: Scientists discussing the intricacies of Einsteinian physics? Or giant robots exploding while other war machines fire energy beams from their armor? However, in choosing visual bombast, the developers omitted to include the subtler elements that make Exodus one of the more promising concept-driven games coming soon. Let's delve deeper.

The Question of Humanity

Does Exodus include aliens? No. That's complicated. Look at that scene near the opening of the trailer, depicting a being with metallic skin and metal components integrated into their body. That was definitely an alien, correct? In the end hinges on your stance regarding one of the game's major existential inquiries: If you applied incremental change logic to the human biology, is what remains still humanity?

“We want the Celestials... for a player who isn't invest considerable amounts of time into absorbing the IP, to still understand the basic premise that they're evolved humans, understand that they’re an opposing force you have to confront... But also, importantly, make sure it's fun and that they're impressive and that they play well to challenge,” explained the studio's general manager.

Grasping how these non-human beings aren't by definition aliens requires grappling with immense expanses of both the galaxy and history. Time dilation — the relativistic effect that time moves differently for high-velocity objects — is an operative scientific basis of Exodus’ science-fiction trappings. Here are the basics: Humanity leaves a depleted Earth in the 23rd century for a distant corner of the Milky Way. Due to time dilation, some human voyagers arrive ages before others. Those early arrivals heavily modified their biology and took on the “Celestial” moniker.

“There’s multiple tiers of evolution. The people who got to the Centauri cluster first... had many thousands of years of evolution into the Celestials... They really see unaltered humans as fundamentally primitive, beneath them, not really suitable for the upper echelons of society,” stated the game's narrative director.

Exodus is set about 40,000 years in the future. Reflect on that timeframe — that's effectively all of our documented past repeated ten times over. Now imagine what humans would become if they spent ten entire human histories pushing the frontiers of genetic manipulation. You would absolutely not identify the end product as human. You might very well believe you're observing an alien. The scariest lineage of Celestial, known as the Mara-Yama, can take diverse forms. Some possess fangs and claws and stand nine feet tall. Others are covered in chitinous shells. According to supplementary lore, when Mara-Yama travel between stars, their physical forms can degenerate into little more than a collection of organs attached to a head.

Building a Sci-Fi Canon

Among the pyrotechnics, beam attacks, and war beasts, you might have noticed snippets of seemingly magical technology in the trailer. The protagonist, Jun Aslan, uses a metallic machine that emanates a purple glow. A spaceship accelerates into a portal and vanishes at near-light speed. This all seems beyond human achievement, the kind of tech ascribed to a Kardashev Scale-topping civilization. Yet, these are further examples of wonders that appear alien but are deeply rooted in humanity's own evolution.

Beyond the core development team, the Exodus universe is being authored by what the narrative lead called a duo of “literary legends.” One acclaimed author has already published a lengthy novel set in the universe, with another planned, while another prolific writer has penned a series of short stories. Incorporating such respected science-fiction writers into the fold years before the game's release has enabled the studio to develop a layered fictional universe as a foundation for the game.

“It was really a collaborative effort. We had set some parameters, and working with him, he would have ideas... and we would work to see how they all meshed... With someone as established, you don't want to handcuff him. You want to give him room to explore,” the narrative director said of the collaboration.

One notable scene shows Jun appearing to mold the ground beneath him, fashioning stone into a temporary bridge. This material, called livestone, reacts to neural commands from Celestials or Uranic humans — descendants of later human arrivals who were granted certain technologies by the Celestials. Since Jun exhibits this ability, speculation arises about his status.

“Jun's not specifically a Uranic human... Jun is sort of a modified version, for want of a better term,” clarified the writer, stating that the ability to interface with Celestial technology is a “key part of the game.”

The vast scale of the Exodus setting — both in distance and historical time — means there is plenty of room for various stories to exist, pulling from the same core lore without causing interference.

Stories Within the Void

Although Exodus has been publicly known for a couple of years and is still distant, 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 many millennia later than planned, making Celestials totally alien to her experience. An episode of a sci-fi anthology recounts a poignant story about a father searching for his daughter across star systems, with time dilation imparting devastating effects on their family; by the time he finds her, she has experienced decades.

The game itself is centered on “Jun’s story,” set on the planet Lidon — a world primarily left by Celestials that has become a bastion. A technological virus known as “the Rot” has begun corroding everything, including critical life support systems, and Jun must master his Celestial-like powers to {find a solution|stop