Exodus gameplay reveal looks a lot like the Mass Effect we've been waiting for

Space grappling hook!!!

The first real look at Exodus gameplay is here, and it's giving Mass Effect. It's giving so much Mass Effect.

This should not come as a huge surprise to anyone who's been following Exodus for the past three years. Announced in 2023, Exodus is a space-faring RPG under development at Archetype Entertainment, a nascent studio founded in part by ex-BioWare employees, including key members of the original Mass Effect team.

Exodus is set 40,000 years in the future, where humans have escaped a dying Earth and reestablished society among a cluster of star systems 16,000 light-years away. Time dilation plays a huge role in Exodus canon; thanks to relativistic physics, the humans who first arrived at the cluster had thousands of years of a head start for evolution, eventually genetically modifying themselves past the point of recognition, and rebranding as "Celestials." You play as Jun Aslan, a human from a family of relatively recent arrivals to the cluster.

At the 2025 Game Awards, Archetype Entertainment debuted a trailer that offered a glimpse of Exodus gameplay, but today's trailer shows the first extended look at how the game actually plays.

The gameplay trailer is broken into three segments. In the first, Jun and two companions, Tom and Elise, are in Lyonesse, a port city on Lidon, a human stronghold planet. The trio fights against a group of humans and hovering robots in classic cover-based shooting, replete with health bars and weapon-selection wheels that wouldn't look out of place in any Mass Effect game.

In the second segment, Jun uses a space grappling hook (okay, it's officially called the "railclaw" but we're going with "space grappling hook" because it sounds cooler) to navigate the exterior of an orbital tower. It appears to be the orbital tower connecting Lyonesse to the Cherag Harbor asteroid; when Jun gazes toward the stars, you can see the illuminated expanse of Lyonesse below, as an aurora bathes the Lidon horizon in green light.

The final segment is set on the planet Khonsu. In it, Jun strolls toward an ancient Celestial shrine, which looks alien in nature — but, again, remember that Celestials are still technically humans. Kinda. But also 40,000 years is a long time — four times IRL recorded human history. Would Celestials have any humanity left? Maybe they're technically not humans anymore. In any case, the temple Jun visits teases a mysticism in Exodus, something beyond the shooting and the space grappling hooks. It's the allure of an ancient, unknowable force in the universe, much like the one that drew fans to Mass Effect all those years ago.

Exodus will be released for PlayStation 5, Windows PC, and Xbox Series X in "early" 2027. Expect a deeper gameplay reveal this summer. In the meantime, read our 2025 Exodus preview and our interview with Archetype Entertainment.