Exodus devs want you to know that despite Matthew McConaughey’s AI deal, not a drop has been used in their game so far
There has never been a time where the presence of a big Hollywood celeb making an appearance in a video game has drawn me in. Who cares! Most of the time they are not voice actors, and are just doing their own voice, maybe sometimes lending their face. And yet here we are with Matthew McConaughey, a man who is happily lending his voice to some AI software, in Exodus, a game that’s basically just another Mass Effect from some folks who actually made Mass Effect. But! Said folks would like you to know that McConaughey’s performance is all him, thanks very much.
“No, no. Everything that’s in Exodus – 100 percent of what’s in Exodus – is bespoke VO recording just for us,” co-founder of Exodus studio Archetype Chad Robertson explained to Eurogamer when asked if the Ghosts of Girlfriends Past actor was at all AI-generated in-game.
“He has a completely separate deal of his own design that he’s worked out with Elevenlabs, which happens to be one of the most prominent, AI voice-generation tools, that is being used by other video game companies. Such that people could leverage his voice in non-bespoke VO sessions in a different way. He has a bunch of really strict rules around how it could be used. The reason I mentioned it more is that even stuff like that catches us off guard, because our engagement with Matthew is very specific.”
Robertson also touched on what the studio’s long-term stance on AI is, which is currently essentially they have none, but will “have to be smart and intelligent about how we adopt it ourselves,” as the tech becomes more widely used. When it comes to Exodus, Robertson also clarified that there’s no AI to be found in it: “With respect to the game, we don’t have plans to use generative AI for any elements of it, but we reserve the right to change that if things require it to get the game at the quality that we need it, or the timeline or budget that we need. But currently that’s not our plan.”
A current lack of AI doesn’t convince me of the game right now, personally. There’s nothing about it that screams particularly unique sci-fi, just perhaps expensive sci-fi, which is often the worst and most boring kind. Still, it’s a while away until any of us find out if that is the case or not, as its Geoffies trailer also positioned it for a 2027 release date.