Matthew McConaughey's interstellar role helped him understand Exodus' big hook

Matthew McConaughey is in it Exodus would always be one of the easiest things to point out about the game. Archetype Entertainment could have said almost nothing else about its upcoming sci-fi RPG, and the fact that McConaughey is playing the mysterious CC Orlev would still be enough to turn heads. But his involvement also makes more sense the more Archetype talks about what Exodus is actually about.

GameRant recently attended a Future Games Show presentation walkthrough by Archetype Entertainment and Wizards of the Coast, where they talked about some of the inspirations behind Exodusand Interstellar naturally came up because of the game's use of time dilation as a core mechanic. Apparently, that connection clicked with McConaughey immediately, as did his role in Interstellar gave him an easy way to understand what the Archetype was trying to do with Exodus. Given how much the game is built around travelers leaving home and returning after years or even decades have passed, it's hard to imagine a more obvious bridge between the cast and the game.

Exodus' time dilation hook has an obvious interstellar connection

Interstellar is undoubtedly the film most people think of when the concept of time dilation comes up. The Miller's Planet sequence is the simplest example, as Cooper, Brand and Doyle are only on the planet for a short time, but Romilly spends more than 20 years waiting for them to be back on the ship. The wave is the immediate danger, but the scene hits much harder once they return and realize how much time is gone. Then, later, Cooper, looking at years of messages from his children at once, drives the point home even more. IN Interstellartime is portrayed as something that people lose and can never get back.

In the end, that's what matters Exodus' use of time dilation so convincing. Games have done a lot with time travel, alternate timelines, and choices that affect the future, but Exodus seems to do something a little different with the idea. Travelers can leave home on a mission and return after years or even decades have passed, making the act of leaving feel important before anything even happens. For a choice-driven RPG, that's a huge hook, and according Exodus game director Chris King, Interstellar was one of the clearest reference points for how powerful that idea can be:

Interstellar is probably the most visible example of time dilation in popular media, but we put our own spin on it. And that's kind of what we like to do is put our spin on these kinds of things, take the things that we loved, take the spirit of what made them exciting to us growing up and as adults too, and bring it all together and create something fresh and new that evokes the same kind of emotions that we like in the entertainment that we love.

Which makes it all the more interesting ExodusBut is that time dilation won't be something that players just watch happen to someone else on a screen. In the film, the audience feels the cost of that through Interstellars characters, but the story is still something they only witness. Exoduson the other hand, has a chance to make players feel some ownership over that cost, since they're the ones sending Jun out into the cluster and living with the time it takes from him while he's gone. That can make the impact hit even harder, as the years spent at Lydon will be part of the journey they chose to take.

Of course, the time dilation is also the reason for Matthew McConaughey's involvement in the Exodus makes so much sense beyond the obvious name recognition. IN InterstellarCooper (McConaughey) is a man who leaves home because he believes it's the only way to save it, and the cost of that decision is measured in the years he never gets back with his children. Exodus obviously tells its own story, but the basic emotional idea fits well with what Archetype does with travelers, time dilation, and the people left behind on Lydon. According to Archetype's general manager Chad Robertson, that connection was apparent to McConaughey almost immediately:

We've told you that Matthew McConaughey is in the game, but the thing about extending the time when we first had a conversation with him, he immediately understood why we were interested in working with him. And so that was a really nice connection that just brought that out and helped us drive that home in the experience overall.

In other words for ExodusMcConaughey is more than just a household name meant to grab attention. Interstellar already put him at the center of a story where going further into space meant losing time with the people he was trying to save, so it makes sense that the idea behind Exodus clicked for him so quickly. There's still a lot about CC Orlev that Archetype hasn't revealed, but with time dilation sitting at the center of it ExodusMcConaughey feels like a pretty natural fit.

Time dilation sits at the heart of Exodus' choice-driven gameplay

Player selection will always be a big part of Exodusespecially with so many former BioWare developers involved. For a game like this, it's not enough to let players choose dialogue options or decide how a mission should end. These choices need to feel like they actually mean something to the world, the characters, and the person Jun becomes along the way. Exodus seems to use time dilation as a way to make that happen, as the consequences of a decision may not wait just a few minutes later. They can wait years or decades ahead. According to narrative lead Drew Karpyshyn:

We want to look at choices on a meta level, which is where we get into things like time dilation. It really helps bring home the effect. It reinforces those choices you make. You can see things play out over a longer time frame when you go on exodus. That's what makes an exodus so important in our game, and that makes it such a big deal, right? That's why, before you embark on an exodus, you really want to consider what's about to happen. You want to make sure you're ready. You want to make sure everything is in place because you're going to be gone for a long time, and sometimes you don't necessarily know how long you're going to be gone, so years, decades may have passed before you come back and things will obviously have changed. So, you try to prepare and set up contingency plans and hope that things are in place when you come back and the choices you made, you can see how they play out over time when you come back on an exodus.

The truth is, most choice-driven RPGs deal with consequences on a much smaller timeline. A companion approves or disapproves, a quest changes direction, a character lives or dies, or a later conversation acknowledges what happened. Exodusin contrast, works with a much larger window of time, giving the Archetype a chance to make decisions feel like they've had years to settle into the world before Jun sees the results. It will be interesting to see how far the game actually takes it once it launches, but as far as RPG concepts go, this is one of the more exciting ones in recent memory.

McConaughey's involvement makes more sense the longer Archetype talks about what Exodus trying to do with time dilation. Interstellar helped popularize the idea by making it emotional, and Exodus tries to take the same concept and put some of it in the player's hands. Whether it works depends on how well the Archetype plays out, but with McConaughey involved, time dilation at the center of the story, and choices with consequences that may not fully play out until years or decades have passed, Exodus has a sci-fi hook worth keeping an eye on.