Matthew McConaughey is dropping daily Exodus trailers like some kind of deep space David Attenborough, and they have 100% convinced me to pay attention to this game

pcgamer.com:

Exodus didn't really do much for me when it was announced at the 2023 Game Awards: Cinematics are a dime a dozen, and the little bit of gameplay in the second part of the reveal trailer looked like something out of a very conventional Mass Effect knockoff. «Kinda neat,» as compatriot Harvey Randall put it, «but nothing to write home about.»

My opinion on the matter started to turn earlier this month when developer Archetype Entertainment, headed up by former BioWare stalwart James Ohlen, released the Mara Yama reveal trailer. It's also a cinematic, yes, but a genuinely good one, thanks in no small part to the ominous narration of Matthew McConaughey, who plays some as-yet unknown role in the game.

Two weeks later, Archetype and McConaughey appear to be in full infodump mode, dropping four new trailers over the past four days, each a sort of David Attenborough-esque examination of the creatures that inhabit the Exodus universe.

I think the back-and-forth between Awakened—animals genetically engineered to be stronger, smarter, or otherwise more useful—and the creations of the post-human Celestials is interesting. Maybe I'm reading too much into it but I feel like the juxtaposition is intentional: Is our subjugation of more primitive life forms really any different from the cruelties of the Celestials? Or is it simply that, even across many millennia of evolution, the essential callousness and selfishness of human nature will endure? No matter what we become, is this who we really are?

I don't know—I really don't know what's going on here at all, except that McConaughey's slow, gravelly narration may have lulled me into a state of meandering contemplation that inevitably ends with me spending 20 minutes looking at my hand. He has that effect on people.

More seriously, I suddenly find myself very curious about whatever it is that Exodus has cooking. The gameplay in that 2023 reveal trailer didn't impress me much—if I want Mass Effect, I'll play Mass Effect—but the