Revision 11

Jun Aslan does not run missions alone. EXODUS is a party-based RPG: a permanent crew lives aboard the Traveler's ship between missions, joins Jun on the ground, and develops personal storylines that play out across the campaign. The crew is small, deliberately drawn from very different backgrounds, and intentionally shaped to react to the deep-time consequences of Time Dilation.

The official roster splits the crew in two. Five slots are listed as combat companions: Tom Vargas, Elise Charroux, Salt, Phaedra Nath, and Suliman, whose biography is still redacted. Six more are listed as story companions: C.C. Orlev, Emrys, Houston, and three whose names have not been released at all. That makes eleven crew positions publicly accounted for, four of them still blank.

Confirmed companions

Tom Vargas

Tom Vargas is a former Traveler. He retired after losing his wife and spent years drifting between systems before settling on Lidon to rebuild as a salvager. By the time Jun is inducted into the Traveler caste, Tom is sharp, resourceful, and visibly carrying the weight of more dead friends than is healthy. He brings field experience the rest of the crew lacks and, importantly, an institutional memory that survives time-dilation jumps better than most.

Tactically, Tom is presented as a marksman and squad anchor. He is a logical first companion for a player who values steady, reliable combat support.

Elise Charroux

Elise is a "Sleeper": she was launched from 23rd-century Earth and only recently revived in the Aslan Dynasty's era. Decades of cryosleep mean she is biologically young, but culturally she is from a world that has been dust for tens of thousands of years. The result is a blunt, no-nonsense mercenary's outlook, with a guarded streak of optimism underneath. Elise's resume includes weapons expertise, gang work, and salvager runs.

Tactically, Elise is heavy-hitting and aggressive: a frontline option who pairs well with Recycler configurations like the Shredder.

The mech suit is hers from Earth, not salvage. Elise trained as a soldier in personal mechanised combat armour before the ark ships left, brought the suit with her, and has spent her time on Lidon repairing and upgrading it into something considerably nastier. She only wears it on missions. Off duty she is either in the garage working on it or drinking with the other mercenaries and salvagers at the cantina in Borderline, a neighbourhood of Persepolis.

Sleepers are ark ship passengers who spent the entire crossing in cryotubes, held in semi-hibernation to conserve resources over a journey that took generations. The side effect nobody planned for was memory loss: prolonged cryosleep leaves holes, and most Sleepers recall only fragments of who they were. Elise's tattoos are the sharpest example. She knows they meant something and she feels it when she looks at them, but when she got them and what they stood for are both gone. Chasing down anything that connects her to Earth is how she tries to get it back. The developers describe her as an adrenaline junkie and thrill seeker with a sarcastic sense of humour.

Salt

Salt is an Awakened octopus mercenary and bounty hunter, described in official material as being as deadly as she is intelligent, piloting a specialised combat mech. Officially she is a master of sniping, evasion, and ejecting ink-like smokescreens to confuse whoever she is fighting, and she thrives in conditions that would stop most of the crew. Awakened are uplifted animals with full sapience, and Salt's species in particular has a long history with the cluster's older powers. She joins Jun's crew on her own terms, brings tools and tactical options that none of the human companions can match, and is canonically not romanceable. Lead writer Drew Karpyshyn was explicit on that point: "humans aren't her type".

Phaedra

Phaedra is a confirmed companion introduced in the May 2026 Guarding Maze gameplay clip and re-confirmed on a second mission later that month: the reveal of Tsang, a volcanic world in the Malakbel system. She accompanies Jun and Tom through the collapsed Celestial facility beneath Lidon and then Jun and Elise into the Tsang crater on the second mission, which makes her one of the few crew members to feature in more than one gameplay reveal. A May 2026 mission-briefing update gives Phaedra a personal stake in the Tsang mission, marking her as a story companion rather than a one-off escort. The June 2026 extended gameplay showcase confirmed her as Phaedra Nath, a renowned xeno-archaeologist whose interest in the Rot, the Celestial virus killing the homeworld, is deeply personal. Her full ability set, romance availability, and tactical archetype have not been disclosed; the clips use her as a third pair of hands for navigation and survival rather than as the showcase character. This article will be expanded once Archetype publishes more about her.

Her official biography fills in what the clips only implied. Phaedra Nath is heir to the Nath Traveler dynasty, and she was infected with a Celestial virus from birth as a consequence of her own family's research. It left her blind and it is slowly crystallising her skin. She navigates through a swarm of autonomous drones that orbit her in shifting formations, feeding her volume, shape, and mass in place of sight.

The virus also gave her something nobody expected: she can interface with Celestial glyphs, a power neither she nor Jun fully understands yet. The April 2026 conversation reveal is built around her talking through it, and how the player responds to that vulnerability shapes where the relationship goes.

Phaedra's family thread is also the hook for one of the two missions shown at length in June 2026. On the volcanic world Tsang, Jun and Phaedra cross sulfurous lakes and ancient architecture searching for her missing grandfather, Elijah, who is said to hold a terrifying secret about where the Rot came from. The showcase ends on that thread rather than resolving it: Jun is left with a final choice that decides Elijah's fate.

Elijah is a story figure rather than a listed crew member, and beyond his name, his relationship to Phaedra, and his connection to the Rot's origins, nothing about him has been published. His surname has never been stated in official material, so this wiki does not assume he shares Phaedra's. What the choice at the end of the Tsang mission actually offers, and how it feeds the Paladin and Immortal alignments, has not been shown.

Suliman

Suliman is a confirmed companion introduced in the April 2026 stealth demonstration. He accompanies Jun and Tom on the infiltration of a Celestial chamber held by Zealot forces. Like Phaedra, Suliman's background and ability set have not been formally disclosed, though his presence on a high-stakes stealth mission suggests a quiet-approach role compatible with the rest of the toolkit. This article will be expanded once Archetype publishes more about him.

C.C. Orlev

C.C. Orlev is the crew's story companion, a role the developers frame as narrative-driven rather than combat-focused. He is an enigmatic, legendary figure who acts as a mentor to Jun, turning up at pivotal moments to offer counsel, though the game hints his guidance may serve an agenda of his own. The official summary keeps the mystery front and centre: everyone knows the myths around Orlev, nobody knows where he vanished or why, and while he appears when Jun needs him most, his motives stay opaque. The June 2026 reveal describes him as a space cowboy. Much of his arc turns on the gap between the myth that has grown around him and whoever he actually is. Orlev is voiced by Matthew McConaughey in the actor's first video game role, and was among the earliest characters Archetype revealed, in an October 2024 trailer. His tactical role in combat, romance availability, and full background have not yet been disclosed.

Confirmed archetypes (additional crew)

Before the roster was named, Archetype Entertainment previewed the wider crew through archetypes rather than characters:

• A genetically engineered savant: a human descendant whose brain and body have been tuned for a single role.

• A punk mech pilot: a younger character at home in the cluster's frontier subcultures, comfortable in heavy hardware.

• A geneticist cursed by an alien virus: a scientific mind paying a slow biological price for past experiments.

• Additional Awakened crew beyond Salt, drawn from species the Celestials uplifted for purposes other than service.

Those archetype descriptions predate the named roster and now map onto confirmed characters rather than placeholders. Phaedra Nath is the crew member paying a biological price for her family's research, and both Elise and Salt operate mechs. Every combat companion and three of the six story companions are now named officially; the remaining three story slots are listed with their names withheld.

Companion abilities and synergy

In combat, companions are not passive followers. They have ability slots that the player can trigger directly, and several abilities are designed to combo with Jun's gauntlet powers. The Combat and Gameplay article describes the moment-to-moment shape of these interactions. Outside combat, companions chime in during conversations, can lock or unlock dialogue options based on their relationship with Jun, and gate certain story branches entirely.

Two companion-specific abilities were named on-screen in the May 2026 Ghost City demonstration:

• Elise's Knockdown Missile: fired from her mech suit. A heavy area-of-effect ordnance that smashes through livestone walls and is the squad's reliable opener for tightly packed groups.

• Salt's Ink Mortar: an indirect-fire ability that disrupts enemies holding higher ground; ideal for vertical encounters where direct fire would be blocked by cover.

Additional confirmed-but-unnamed-on-screen abilities, plus the player-side abilities they combo with, are described on Gauntlet Abilities and Combat and Gameplay.

Romance system

EXODUS includes companion romance. Multiple companions are romanceable, with their own personal questlines and emotional payoffs. The relationships are intended to interact heavily with Time Dilation: a romance entered into before a long mission is not safe by default, and a relationship the player neglects can recover or rupture across the gap. Karpyshyn has described the romanceable cast in interviews as "pretty thirsty", which the audience took as confirmation that romance is not a token feature.

Crew table

Additional companions and their canonical names will be added to this article once Archetype confirms them in the shipped build.

Further Companions

Houston and Emrys are both listed on the official roster as story companions with their biographies redacted. Houston is confirmed as an Awakened wolf and a friend of the Traveler. Emrys is confirmed by name only. Three further story companion slots appear on the same roster with both name and biography withheld, so the crew is not finished being introduced.