New RPG from Mass Effect veterans has us fighting climate crisis because ancient planet-terraforming machines that hold everything together are breaking down

Exodus - the new space epic from veterans who worked on the Mass Effect trilogy, Halo, and The Last of Us - is bursting with super cool ideas, and leading the pack are the newly revealed planet-terraforming machines.

Developer Archetype Entertainment yesterday published another blog post diving into Exodus' all-new galaxy, this time exploring the origins of the Archimedes Engine and Exodus' wider world as a whole.

There's lots of complicated world-building going on, but the gist of it is that Earth was dying, so ships were sent into deep space to look for habitable planets. One particular ship stumbled upon breathable land, and while they waited for the rest of humanity to join them, thousands of years of evolution turned those people into not-so-human "Celestials."

Eventually, those Celestials waged wars, built and tore entire empires, and absolutely decimated multiple planets while fighting over domination of their not-so-new homes.

That's when the Celestials had the bright idea to create maybe the coolest thing I've read about all week: giant machines that travel space and reform entire planets. "This incredible invention reshaped the very architecture of the galaxy, by enabling the movement of entire planets within a star system, repositioning them into life-sustaining 'Goldilocks' habitable zones," the blog explains. "The Engine stabilized orbits, controlled atmospheres, and terraformed barren worlds into new Eden Worlds."

Everything has an expiry date, however, unbelievable mech gods included - and that's where the main conflict in Exodus arises. Our character's home planet was inherited by a late arrival human colony ship, so we're more recognizably monkey-like, but the mech-god-custodian that's keeping our planet stable is crumbling under a condition called "The Rot," which prompts us and our party to travel the galaxy in search of ancient celestial remnants to repair it with.

"Can you overcome the challenges you face, unlock the secrets of the Archimedes Engine, and save our home? Or is our planet doomed to repeat the tragic errors of Earth, becoming just another casualty in the long and brutal history of the Centauri Cluster?" the blog asks.

I think that framing is probably the most exciting bit of Exodus' marketing so far. If you're unaware, Exodus has a huge emphasis on time-dilation, which means one hour for your party might be years back on our home planet, and our decisions will ripple for "years, decades, and even centuries." Having Exodus' main thrust directly mirror Earth's climate crisis from millennia ago, in a game with time-hopping shenanegians, is just a really smart idea.

We'll see how it all shakes out when Exodus releases sometime in 2026 for PC and consoles.

In the meantime, check out some video game release dates that we are aware of.