Enough of the baby stuff, okay? I putting an end to it all right now. Whilst the Playstation 5 event was resplendent with newborn IPs and teases about this infant console's capabilities, at the end of the day the reason I was there was to see the wizened, old franchises I loved from back in the day get continued. Yet even then I will readily admit that I did not expect to see this latest game at such a time, in such an event, or even at any feasible time in my entire lifetime. Not because I was unaware of it's existence, far from it, but because I'd seen the project literally be teased all those years back and have followed it diligently ever since. Every sliver of fan art, every twitter-reveal goal, every 5 second spanning breath of a cutscene was all appetiser for this; a childhood fascination revived all these years later. I watched the team pass event after event with either not enough content to show or not enough pull to get featured, and I convinced myself that this was just the kind of game that no one wanted to see other than me. Then, the impossible happened during the PS5 event; the studio logo melted onto screen and in that brief second we all knew that it could signal no other; Abe had returned. Here, during the biggest game-reveal event of the year, we were going to get to see the full trailer of 'Oddworld; Soulstorm'. (What a day to be alive.)
So what exactly is Oddworld and why is this new 'Soulstorm' game such a big deal? Glad you asked, me, so here's rub. Released all the way back in the deeply personal year of 1997, 'Oddworld Abe's Oddysee' was a surreal and twisted platformer which confused and delighted audiences, and me, with a mixture of adventure, puzzling, dark themes and surrealist humour. Even coming back to the title today, with two decades of playing video games behind me, it still stands out as one of the weirdest and yet best constructed platformers that I've ever played. It follows the tale of a Abe, an enslaved Mudokon who is accidentally thrust into the shoes of a liberator for his kind after stumbling onto a secret plot from his corporate overlords to amend their self-caused resource shortages by resorting to cannibalism. (Although, I suppose it's not exactly 'cannibalism' as they're not interested in eating each other but rather their Mudokon slaves.) What follows is a journey for Abe as he tries to survive the deadly world he finds himself on whilst solving various headscratching puzzles, freeing his fellow slave brethren and using his mind-control powers to force his pursuers to jump into meat grinders. (Fun for all the family.)
Many gamers have that story about getting into the habit by enjoying the activity alongside their parent(s), and for me that was not so much the case. I was just left in the same room as a controller and before you knew it I was playing 'Metal Gear Solid'. But I did get the chance to experience that chance of family game-bonding due to the robust 'Abe's Oddysee' world and the way it relied as much on player's ability to analysis and deduce as it did on their reflexes. (Although reflexes weren't entirely moot either; just ask that Paramite escape scene which I still have nightmares about to this day.) Me and my father played through the entirety of 'Abe's Oddysee' together and even reformed our team to tackle 'Abe's Exodus' too. (Yeah, I remember that game's existence; unlike it's creators, it would seem.) Those are the sorts of cherished memories that I wouldn't give up for all the Cyberpunk 2077's in the world and will likely be among the fond recollections that I pack up in the ol' head bank and take to my ultimate grave. (Whichever shallow highway that ends up being.)
As such, to say that I have been waiting for this game for a very long time is a supreme understatement. 'Oddworld Abe's Exodus' came out all the way in 1998, and I likely played it roughly ten years later, which means that I have been waiting about 12 years believing this entire franchise to be a relic of my past, never to be seen again. There was the odd title throughout the years, 'Munch's Oddysee' and 'Stranger's Wrath', but none of those caught that strange, even sometimes morbid, magic of those old classics. Imagine my distress to learn how literally no one else in the world that I've met has ever played or even heard of Oddworld, I felt like a lunatic bringing up my experiences with this surreal, almost nightmarish (at times) game that most people didn't even think existed. In fact, I began to think that I was only one who'd ever played those games until 2014 with the release of the fangame; 'Oddworld: New 'n' Tasty', which completely remade the original game on Unity, albeit at the cost of some of the charm. (Still, it let me know that I wasn't alone!)
So here we are in 2020 with Oddworld Inhabitants finally getting the front stage once more to show off Soulstorm, and the game looks... newer. Oddworld was always fortunate to be one of those old school properties that hit the sort of artstyle that just sticks. Even in modern day graphics engines with all the bells and whistles attached, that characters, worlds and creatures are absolutely unmistakable and I somewhat envy that audience of fresh-faced newcomers getting the opportunity to be exposed to this weird universe for the first time and going "Woah, that looks funky." On the topic of aesthetic direction; I have noticed that there has been somewhat of a departure (or perhaps one could argue a revolution) from what fans of the original were familiar with. One of the most enduring locations from the first game was the heavily industrial Rapture farms, with it's perpetually moving pieces and turning gears livening up the long dark shadows by the factory line. Soulstorm, on the otherhead, focuses on wide open bright vistas that seem almost reminiscent of Madmax in their vaguely post-apocalyptic desolation.
Now of course, the outside of the facility was thoroughly explored in 'Oddysee', but there what we saw more of were forests and ancient temples, whereas this title appears to be leaning more to the 'arid badland' depiction we saw from the 'New 'n' Tasty' characterisation of the world. Although to their credit, the lack of wildlife and nature does certainly better fit the subthemes of pollution and over saturation by the tyrannically avaricious Magog Cartel. Seeing the scars they've torn into the land provides a handy visual impetus to prod Abe towards tackling his former employers; which I do believe is intended to be the next step of this 5 game journey that Oddworld Inhabitants have been planning for the last two decades. (Was it five games? I forget.) Overall, I can say that I like what I'm seeing and am not too upset by the slight thematic departure. Besides, I already know we'll get some good old fashioned factory gameplay down the line. (I've seen their other footage.)
What I have a harder time getting to terms with, and I understand that it's my familiarity with the franchise that's doing this to me, it's the speed of it all. (Yeah, I still haven't quite gotten over that.) Abe's Oddysee was by no means a slow game, but it was one that you could certainly take at your own pace if given the time, but that's not the impression I get from anything I've seen regarding Soulstorm and that does slightly perturb me. From the looks of it the saving of the Mudokons is less going to be about a herculean task of puzzling out the problem and more about how best to outwit the moment to moment onslaught of Sligs. Every bit of gameplay has Abe running around with lights and explosions flying off everywhere, quickly scrambling something together in the crafting system that this game now has for some reason, and racing against his steadily diminishing number of followers. It just doesn't really feel like Abe to me right now and I'm struggling with that. I want this game to be something I love and it feels like something else, which obviously is the wrong way to approach a situation like this but I can't help it. I want to see what newer things can be done with the concept, I do; I just hope that the gameplay still hits with the same level of accessible fun that it did all the way back in 1997.
We'll have to see about that though, won't we, as the game will be out at sometime this year according to the prospective release date which is absolutely subject to changing on a dime. And in a strange way I don't feel ready for it, like the game is just going to be here far too soon. Somewhat similar to the way in which Bioware revived the Mass Effect brand far too early, without giving fans a time to really come to terms with the old games and grow wistful; I get similar sensations thinking about a 2020 release of Soulstorm, which is silly seeing as how the last game was literally 23 years ago. Maybe my nerves are just getting the better of me and I just need to get my grubby mitts on the title and finally play it. No more trailers, no more gameplay; just give me the game so I can judge for myself, that's the way I want it done. (I can't wait to see how many cruel and embarrassing ways I can get killed in the first hour alone.)
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