Remember Exodus? Here's its first gameplay, featuring a not quite Commander Shepard sci-fi slapping up a space bear
The game also has Matthew McConaughey in it, doing video games for the first time.
You might well have forgotten about Exodus in the year since it was first revealed at The Game Awards 2023 by actor Matthew McConaughey, who's playing a mysterious "major character" in it called C.C Orlev. The good news is that about a year on, it's now gotten its first gameplay trailer, featuring action that looks like it'll appeal to those who like to bang, ok.
Why? Well, things are looking very Mass Effecty, with copius hints of the the aesthetic a bunch of sci-fi movies and games seem to have been going for over the past decade. Oh, and an armoured bear that wants to get in the McConaugway.
This first look at gameplay, which you can watch below, comes after Exodus developer Archetype Entertainment has spent the past couple of months putting out lore videos which see McConaughey tell us about stuff in the game's universe in his classic drawl.
One of those things is the "Awakened Bear". These are literal bears which have been armoured up and seemigly gained intelligence, so they can run medical supplies to remote space colonies and - as McConaughey hints has happened a lot lately - can be employed as furry mercenaries. Think BG3 lad Halsin's animal form, but if he woke up one morning with Minthara's personality in some kind of Freaky Friday swap, I assume.
Anyway, in the gameplay trailer, the game's protagonist, Jun, has a fight with one of these bears, using his sci-fi gizmos to slap it up, after a bit of tactical running away. This is pretty much the high point, with everything else seeming very Mass Effecty - you're in a space suit, you're shooting and sneaking your way through space dungeons, you're talking to other people in space suits. There is also a floating frog at one point, which I liked.
It's worth noting that Archetype Entertainment is steeped in BioWareyness, having been co-founded by former BioWare devs James Ohlen and Chad Robertson, so it being a bit Mass Effecty vibe-wise isn't too surprising.
"Join the Travelers, as they sacrifice their lives to travel through the Centauri Universe on a dangerous mission to save an isolated Awakened civilization from enslavement by Celestials," reads the trailer's blurb, "Our service – our sacrifice – discovers worlds, seeds hope, breaks empires. WE ARE THE TRAVELERS."
Ok, McConaughey and Archetype, you don't have to shout.
In other recent ex-BioWare dev news, original Mass Effect trilogy director Casey Hudson's studio Humanoid Origin unfortunately shut down last month citing a lack of funding, without ever releasing in the game it was working on.