EXODUS Gameplay Trailer: “The Traveler’s Creed” – YouTube

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When it was first revealed at the 2023 Game Awards, Exodus didn’t do much for me, but my interest in it began to grow after Matthew McConaughey started releasing Exodus trailers daily Space David Attenborough. Today we got our first look at actual Exodus gameplay, and I hate to say it, but I’m once again feeling pretty ambivalent about the whole thing, which looks more like an alt-universe Mass Effect to my eyes.

To be fair, you can’t take too much away from any single trailer: they’re tiny snippets of hours-long games that are primarily intended to generate hype. But there’s just so much going on here that’s so reminiscent of Mass Effect, right down to the glowing neon space magic stabbing gauntlet. You can call it “celestial technology” all you want, but it’s still an Omni-Blade.

Even the very short bits of dialogue leave me cold. It has a bite to it that reminds me of Fraser Brown’s thoughts on how Dragon Age: The Veilguard turned out BioWare’s Avengers,” and takes conversational cues from a Marvel formula whose greeting has almost been exhausted. “A loaded gun is a damn good way to greet your new partner,” our hero quips, before the grizzled veteran throws out – presumably after everyone has figured out it’s all just a big misunderstanding – “Now that we’re all the best If we are friends, let’s make each other rich.”