Tom is an expert in all things Fortnite or the latest RPG release, but is probably spending too much time on the latest EA FC game.
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Over the years, we’ve seen countless RPGs hope to fill the Mass Effect-sized holes in our hearts. Great third-person combat, engaging character-led storytelling, and an interesting world to explore. From my hour hands-on with Exodus at Gamescom, it seems to have nailed all of those things, cementing itself as the best thing I saw at the show.
Exodus sees you play as Jun, either male or female, who is a salvager tuned traveler. You and your team of heroes head out to find Remnants that’ll help you save your home world. Along the way, you meet and help Awakened, floating frog overlords that call Omega Centauri home.
Exodus feels great. The third-person shooting is fast-paced and satisfying, but your starting gun is only the base of your arsenal. You have four at your disposal at any one time, including a shotgun, assault rifle, and sniper rifle, but you also have abilities you can use to turn the tide of an encounter.
Your abilities come from Jun’s gauntlet, and they allow you to change your approach to fighting in an instant. Ranged attacks, short bursts of increased power attacks, and more can be customized onto the gauntlet, giving you more than just guns in every fight.
You also have free use of your companions’ combat skills, too. Each one has a special attack that you can trigger after short cooldowns. Rocket barrage and the ability to go invisible to attack from the shadows are just a couple of those you can trigger, and they’re extremely useful when regular weapons simply aren’t doing the job.
And that happens regularly. I felt like my friends’ attacks were so much more powerful than mine, to the point that I was constantly spamming my controller’s shoulder buttons to check whether I had one available to use. I don’t know if they’re overpowered, my weapons are underpowered, or whether it’s all by design, but it’s not a great feeling when you’re supposed to be the leader of a gang, yet are being carried through every fight by your colleagues’ advanced skills. Once you charge a synergy ability and you all join together to attack at once, you’re more powerful than ever.
Whether they’re overpowered or not, the structure of the combat, where you need to use your allies’ abilities to take out enemies in different ways depending on the situation, is a lot of fun. You’re kept on your toes, having to juggle agile movement and positioning, your own guns, and the best time to use the suite of gauntlet skills at your disposal. It means Exodus doesn’t fall into the familiar pitfalls of grinding through room after room of similar enemies, blasting away repetitively.
A well-designed bear boss fight at the end of my demo put the character coordination to the test. The bulky creature could slam down powerfully, attack from the opposite end of the arena, and rush right at me, so it was vital that I used each of my attacks, and my companions’, at the right time to stay out of danger as much as possible. Every combat encounter was fun because of how Exodus feels to play. It’s more than just a basic third-person shooter, and that’s vital in keeping a long RPG interesting over tens of hours.
You can use your abilities to explore in interesting ways, too. You have a suite of different options, including one that blasts blue spikes along the ground in front of you. While it’s useful in combat, it can also be used to destroy things blocking your way. Since you have so many different abilities at your fingertips, the puzzle of working out which one to use when is genuinely fun.
Between the combat encounters, the conversations you have seem to have genuine weight to them. The frogs, or Awakened, are fun to interact with, and the dialogue choices allow you to mess with the characters. You can frustrate them, persuade them, and manipulate them. There’s a playful aspect to Exodus, which is a lot of fun. The world feels lived in and confident in its style.
It has got a lot of personality, and I’m excited to see how that translates into the overarching story. Games like this need to put the central characters at the game’s forefront, making everything you do about them and how they feel, and my hour with Exodus didn’t make it clear how deep that vein runs.
The only stumbling block came whenever Jun or my companions spoke. The dialogue is regularly awkward and cheesy. Considering Omega Centauri is a world that feels believable, the characters often feel fake and caricatured. The structure of conversation being fun and ambitious is great, but if what the characters are actually saying is off-putting, it dampens the storytelling significantly.
My hands-on time with Exodus still did a lot to excite me. It feels great to play, the world is authentic, and the narrative seems to be something you can truly play around with. If Wizards of the Coast can sort out the dialogue, we’re in for a Mass Effect-style RPG treat.