Archetype Entertainment's 'Exodus' To Push Gender Ideology While Game Director Claims "Great RPGs Are About Agency"

Chris King, the Game Director for Archetype Entertainment’s upcoming RPG Exodus, claims that “great RPGs are about agency” while the company revealed it will be pushing gender ideology through the game.

Archetype Entertainment is a subsidiary of Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro, and is based out of Austin, Texas. The company was established back in 2019 with retired BioWare Senior Creative Director James Ohlen tapped to lead it.

The studio was named Archetype Entertainment in 2020 and the company revealed its first game, Exodus, starring Matthew McConaughey at The Game Awards in 2023.

A new trailer for the game was released at this year’s The Game Awards that revealed that players will take on the role of Jun Aslan, a lowly salvager who becomes humanity’s last hope against the Celestials.

In an interview with GameRant, Game Director Chris King shared the company’s philosophy for the game:

We believe strongly that great RPGs are about agency. We call them water cooler moments where, if all of us play, we come into work the next day and talk about where we got in Exodus. They’re drastically different experiences depending on the choices. One of the internal mantras we have is we want to think of the player as co-author of the experience.

Additionally, it was revealed that the game will be pushing gender ideology as players will be given the option to play as a male or female character, but the character will remain Jun Aslan.

For those who might balk that this is not gender ideology, this is the literal definition of it. Bishop Michael Burbidge explains that transgender ideology “is the claim that a person’s biological sex and personal identity have no necessary connection and could in fact contradict each other.”

As for how the game is implementing its philosophy about agency, it revolves around Jun harvesting Remnants, which are advanced items developed and used by the Celestials. He then must decide how to use the Remnants and will be forced to choose between “short-term versus long-term” effects.

Specifically, players will make a choice on what to do with a Remnant and then go off on a mission and upon completing will return after 10 years have passed to witness the effect of their choice.

King explained, “All of that has impact back on your home world both on the physical structure and the way things look, but also in terms of the way your companions interact with you.... The scope of the change [you] can impact there is really huge.”

“Because of time dilation, the manifestation of change can be really dramatic for us. The span of time that happens on some of these journeys Jun takes is really huge,” he explained.

Narrative Director Drew Karpyshyn added, “The journey doesn’t seem that long for you, but you come back 10 years [later, things] have changed. Everyone left behind has had things evolve, and there are new challenges depending on the choices you make — different challenges from what other players might have experienced.”

Karpyshyn also shared that decisions the player makes will also affect the game’s companions and some of the choices will force the player to choose one companion over another, “Companions don’t always agree with what you do, and they don’t always agree with each other. You kind of have to balance this...this brings a real role-playing element. There are certain decisions where you might be able to upgrade or improve one companion at the expense of not helping another. So we really want to kind of put you in this constant [state] where you’re making decisions and customizing — and agonizing.”

He added, “You can’t have everything, so you’ve got to pick what you want, and there are some hard decisions.”

Fortunately, we can also choose not to buy this game and be exposed to its transgender propaganda.

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