The upcoming Exodus from Archetype Entertainment is shaping up to be a lot like the iconic Mass Effect trilogy, or a true spiritual successor of Bioware’s universally acclaimed sci-fi-space opera series of games. And in a new interview with IGN, Exodus narrative director Drew Karpyshyn (who also worked previously as a writer and lead developer at BioWare) opened up briefly on several aspects of the action RPG experience such as it’s relationships and character arcs becoming heavily influenced by your in-game choices.
He said that the relationship system in the game is about making the supportive characters feel real and “[M]aking their relationship with you grow, allowing it to evolve from the choices you’ve made, and realizing that the choices you make are going to bring some companions closer to you, but maybe push some companions farther away.”
“Without spoiling too much, we definitely want to have it impact how their storylines go,” also adding that “Depending on choices you make, by the end of the game, you might not have every companion with you that you started with. That’s about all I can say!”
He also stated that your in-game choices in Exodus will have consequences beyond the main storyline: “Even within that optional content, there are choices that will lock or unlock certain things, change the way things play out, change relationships, change characters, change… future… missions…”
Overall, it’s abundantly clear at this point that Exodus has the Mass Effect DNA at it’s core when it comes to narrative and player choice. However, there’s another aspect that made Bioware’s trilogy of games really special (and even Andromeda, to an extent) is the multi-faceted gameplay system with the 6 classes that made it’s combat extremely engaging and rewarding. And if Exodus nails the combat just as Bioware did, then it can indeed turn out to be the de-facto sci-fi space action RPG for a new generation.
