After watching this month’s videos, it is hard to ignore just how strongly this sci-fi RPG reflects the work of developers who once helped shape Mass Effect.

Ever since Archetype Entertainment first offered a glimpse of its sci-fi RPG Exodus a month ago, smaller videos have been trickling out one by one, showing firefights, alien world exploration, stealth, and even a man staring out from a balcony. The main takeaway from those teasers is simple: yes, this absolutely looks like Mass Effect, and that is not surprising. Archetype itself describes the studio as being led by industry veterans from BioWare, 343, Electronic Arts, Naughty Dog, and other major AAA teams, and the staff once included former BioWare design director James Ohlen. That is the past tense, because Ohlen left Archetype late last year.

At the time, Hasbro vice president of corporate communications Abby Hodes told Bloomberg that James felt his work on the game was complete at that stage and that the polishing and tuning were in good hands with the team. Exodus is being published by Hasbro subsidiary Wizards of the Coast. Still, the situation feels odd, because Exodus is not due out until next year and clearly still has a lot of work ahead of it. A studio leader’s job normally does not end when the project is nowhere near finished. But whatever is going on at Archetype, the company continues to act as though everything is proceeding normally. Beyond the teasers released over the last month, a more substantial presentation of the RPG is expected this summer.

What stands out most is how much it resembles Mass Effect, and not merely in a vague inspirational sense. Based on what has been shown so far, it looks like it could almost be Mass Effect 5 from both an aesthetic and gameplay perspective. Archetype is obviously not just photocopying BioWare’s IP, because the stealth system shown last week, for example, is something new. That said, it does not seem especially inventive, and it is not really different from the forced stealth sections that so many action games lean on. Still, it is not something Shepard would ever have done. The latest teaser is not especially exciting either. It is just a guy looking over a generic sci-fi cityscape from a balcony while music plays in the background that sounds straight out of the Citadel in Mass Effect.

One new touch will at least appeal to Mass Effect codex obsessives: when looking at objects, codex pop-ups appear directly on screen instead of forcing players into a separate menu. It all looks fairly good. A little stiff, a little too eager to resemble games we played years ago, but certainly not disastrous. Even so, we are still waiting for the moment when Exodus shows something that genuinely makes it hard to stay calm.

Source: PC Gamer