Oddworld: Soulstorm revives the series by bringing back Abe and abandoning 20 years of expectations - valentinemaraver

To empathiseOddworld: Soulstorm, you need to realiseOddworld's history. You need to understand thatOddworld: Abe's Oddysee, free in 1997, was meant to be the first part of a five-game serial, each starring a stain new protagonist—and you need to understand that those plansimmediately fell apart.

First came success. WithOddysee a surprise hit, publisher GT Interactive demanded a sequel for the following Christmastide. The solvent was 1998'sAbe's Exoddus, a makeshift release. Still well-conventional at the time, it didn't procession the coreOddworld storyline and was reasoned a "bonus" gimpy by both developers and fans.

Past came circumstance.Munch's Oddysee, released in 2001, was considered the true successor toAbe's Oddysee—the secondly part of the original five-part plan. But a late-stage deal to micturate IT an Xbox-sole sawMunch's Oddysee fundamentally rebuilt from scratch in easy form, rushed to release alongside Microsoft's console debut.

Then cameStranger's Wrath. A cult classic, the quarterOddworld game strayed even boost from the original five-contribution story and essentially used the macrocos as backcloth for a faux-Westerly. It also sold poorly at the time, after whichOddworld went dormant.

Finally, came Lorne Lanning himself. He devised the freehand plan, whol those long time ago, and he can damn well botch up it up if he wants to.

And he wants to. I heavily traveled to Oddworld Inhabitants' office a few weeks agone to considerSoulstorm, and came absent with details about what leave surely become the most enterprising retcon in video game history, erasing 21 years of established canon and expectations so Lorne Lanning can take a second shot at telling the story he set out to tell in 1997.

"Abe's spinal column." That's how the modishSoulstormtrailer ends, and that's the key to Lanning's adapted sight.Soulstorm is a direct sequel toAbe's Oddysee, or rather to the 2014 remakeCurrent 'n' Tasty, and it's besides (as the trailer puts it) "The all-new moment episode of theOddworld Quintology epic." No divers-agonist-for-every-gamey.Oddworld is, at to the lowest degree in that reimagined Quintology, the story of Abe, the unwitting slave who sparked a revolution almost by accident. Abe and Abe exclusive. Sorry, Munch.

"But wait,Abe's Oddysee already has a sequel. You mentioned it up top." True enough, andSoulstormincorporates aspects ofAbe's Exoddus.BothExoddus andSoulstormrevolve around Soulstorm Brew, an zip drink that keeps consumers stupid and complacent and which becomes the latest target of Abe's thriving uprising as he liberates those involved in (quite a literally) fashioning it.

Soulstorm is not aNew 'n' Hot-style refashion though. It's non elevatingExoddus from a soh-called "bonus" game to a core parting of the series. It's, at to the lowest degree to hear Lanning tell it, grander and many ambitious than that, lifting elements of the original Quintology plan only refocusing them around Abe.

It's also an evolution of the classic 2.5-dimensionOddworld mechanism, a fact that's immediately clear when Lanning starts the demonstration. "Everything you give the axe figure in a level becomes playable, even if IT's way back in the distance," says Lanning, equally we start trudging through with a familiarOddworld factory landscape. And thither's alot in the distance. Lanning calls it 2.9-D, this sensation of added depth inSoulstorm. The factory stretches back four or fivesome distinct layers, with workers patrolling and machinery clanking around. It's whol tangible, stored in memory and rendered in real-time, and Abe will eventually enter these areas Eastern Samoa he progresses done the level.

It's impressive. IT doesn't variety the waySoulstorm plays really, with each area somewhat composed. But IT's cool to see them all laid out at the set out, and to get a preview of what's to come later on.

Which is not to saySoulstorm plays similarOddysee. Quite the opposite, very. "We built something we refer to as a scavenger's economic system," says Lanning, as Abe roots around in a wastebin. "Helium can take what he toilet buy—Brew, Fizzy Pops, Bubblegum, Lighters—and craft them a Pelican StateAnarchist's Cookbook with the collectibles he's finding, so information technology's really more in the revolutionary spirit."

Yes, crafting. And weapons. The organisation seems remarkably burly, with Lanning display off at to the lowest degree two-dozen different variants during my demo. Items can follow used as-is, so Abe can throw a jawbreaker at a guard to knock him out—Beaver State he can envelop one in rubber bands first so information technology bounces off walls. A can asphyxiator is obvious, but combining an asphyxiator with Brew, a lighter, A battery, and a wire will create a flamethrower, for the diametric event.

These ideas aren't new per se, merely they're new toOddworld, in part because most of them became fashionable after the series disappeared. Right now the system seems a number finicky, a trifle distressful on micro-managing multiple resources, but information technology's smooth an interesting direction for the series now that the platforming challenges inOddysee andExoddus Don River't seem like enough to keep people interested.

"We wished-for to shift knocked out of the super-tight twitch puzzles, similar get underneath these blades that will kill you, and get more to the point where the puzzle is keeping everyone sensitive," says Lanning. And on it note, the multitude Abe liberates are a mete out more hands-happening this prison term around as advantageously. "Traditionally your followers were beasts of burden. In this eccentric, we hot you to feel like you had refined characters in a dangerous human beings. Then you can empower them, so you become this dangerous gang."

Anything you can craft, you can give in to your followers. The result is emerging chaos, as I witnessed multiple multiplication in the demo. Lanning was fond of giving his followers flamethrowers and molotov cocktails, which as you might expect ended up with a whole lot of stuff on fire—enemies and friends similar. A helpful lead: You backside give your followers bottles of water, and they'll hear to extinguish whatever crispy friends with it.

In classicalOddworld tradition, your method of approach also influences how the story plays tabu. "You can engender through the unimpaired game without killinganybody. Not evening the bad guys," says Lanning, "Beaver State you send away belt down everyone, fifty-fifty the guys you're alleged to follow rescuing, which leads to very different dark or lighter endings."

Though it's also tradition forOddworld to consider the promiscuous ending canon. "We're not doing the Peter Molyneux thing, like 'What if I go dark?'" says Lanning. "We want you to go light." Something to keep in mind for an eventual Quintology, Split Three.

Bottom demarcation

Soulstormwill be divisive I bet, especially to longtime fans World Health Organization've waited most two decades for the third gear entry (reputedlySqueek's Oddysee) in the creative Quintology. I think it's the right go up though. I admittedly haven't seen much ofSoulstorm's story yet, but was shown the nearly-ten-minute movie that opens the game. IT hints at the case growth Abe will go through, from naive and reluctant hero to battle-hardened veteran. That tease alone already pushes the overarching plot forward to a greater extent thanEdvard Munch's Oddysee did.

And that's ultimately what I need, if the mutually exclusive is the story left unresolved. I voiced standardized concerns withDarksiders IIIlast year, a series which planned a similarly pushy series of interconnected games—the first four taking place concurrently, the 5th tying the plot together. And while I loved that idea when the forward two games released, six years and the near-dying of the serial publication successful information technology seem foolhardy to stick to that plan whenDarksiders Cardinal free. What if we never get a fourth? Or a fifth part?

With nine years betweenStranger's Wrath andNew 'n' Choice—and nearly twenty dollar bill betwixtMunch's Oddysee and a properOddworldcontinuation—perhaps a bit of focus is precisely what's needed. Look forOddworld: Soulstorm to release in early 2020, provided everything goes to plan from present along out.