Exodus Has an Octopus Sniper and It's Better Than Garrus

Look, I get it. You're thinking an octopus companion sounds ridiculous. But that's exactly why Exodus might pull this off where other games chicken out. The developers aren't trying to make the octopus feel grounded or realistic—they're leaning into the absurdity and that's what makes it work. Mass Effect did companion relationships by making you care about aliens who felt genuinely alien, and Exodus seems to understand that same formula.

Here's what separates this from lazy design: the octopus actually has a defined role in your squad. It's a sniper. Eight arms means flexibility in how it sets up, how it moves, how it fights. The developers thought about what an octopus would actually do in combat instead of just slapping tentacles on a human character model and calling it a day. That's the difference between a gimmick and something that could genuinely be fun to play with.

The broader game is already looking ambitious in ways that feel overdue. It takes the Mass Effect formula—exploration, squad-based combat, relationship building—and moves it into a fresh universe with design choices that don't feel safe. An octopus sniper is just the most obvious example of a game willing to be weird. That's refreshing.