Oddworld: SoulStorm

[Vlam]

Let me remind you that, in 2001, MO's website was pretty dark and funnier than this (you could apply some products on a Fuzzle).

Havoc isn't new to Oddworld (unlike many others) so his reaction is suprising.

[Crashpunk]

Nothing happened in Abe's Exoddus though. Nothing big, anyway.

Hmm... Y'know. I never really thought about it until now really. But Abe's Exoddus was quite filler heavy wasn't it? and I guess it really doesn't add anything the grand scheme of things.

If Soulstorm is made to tackle this, well holy crap I want it even more now.

I guess what I'm trying to say, I hope all the characters, locations and ect from Exoddus still remain.

[SligValet]

Oh hey, looks like we're in for a reveal of the hands about nowish?


Wait what, I looked at it and the meter was all the way up to "Hands", now it's back down again
Come on Abe, you promised me that handjob dude

[STM]

I mean, they shut down the mines and the brewery and destroyed a large amount of industrial infrastructure. I thought it was good, Abe is shown to be realistically portrayed; yeah he blows up Soulstorm but he doesn't manage to put Bonewerkz, Slig Barracks, etc, out of business.

[Havoc]

Nothing happened in Abe's Exoddus though. Nothing big, anyway.

Aside from blowing up or shutting down 5 major facilities, killing 4 high ranking Glukkons and saving 300 Mudokons... yeah nothing really happened there. Why are they even remaking this?

As for the story, from what I can see they're still planning on telling the same general story, but in a completely different way. I'm sure we'll see the majority of known locations in some form or another.

The original scene where the Glukkons are giving Brew away to the Mudokons might have been much more elaborate in earlier drafts, because the new '300 Mudokons get recaptured in the desert' thing would fit that cutscene perfectly. And the intro walk across the desert with 5 Mudokons instead of 300 could easily have been a technical limitation that no longer applies with modern tech.

Hmmm, so many interesting possibilities.

[Crashpunk]

I mean, they shut down the mines and the brewery and destroyed a large amount of industrial infrastructure. I thought it was good, Abe is shown to be realistically portrayed; yeah he blows up Soulstorm but he doesn't manage to put Bonewerkz, Slig Barracks, etc, out of business.

Oh yeah there's no denying Abe did a lot of work in Exoddus.

But I guess Nep is trying to say that all of that could be not mentioned and it wouldn't effect the whole story of the main "Oddysee" games.

[Slog Bait]

AE was nothing but world building. It's not particulary super important to the over arching story, but it provides us with more information of the location and politics as a whole.

Anyway I can't figure out how to embed it and make it start at a specific time, but just skip to 7:10



I never made the connection at the time because of the way it was told, but I'm guessing it's going to be more clear that these mudokons we're seeing were the very same he rescued from RF previously, after they had run low on resources like the OP indicates.

e-havoc y
crashpunk y

[Manco]

The OP implies that the story of AE is going to begin and be told in a drastically different way, and that instead of just a handful of friends coming along it's the entirety of former RF employees. Which is crazy. Sounds like it's going to be the same general story at heart, though.

Maybe they partied too hard and too long and the natives of the monsaic lines didn't have nearly enough supplies to last for an additional 300 muds, so they just told them all to fuck off or something something destiny something get off our land

Probably like “hey thanks for freeing us from slavery Abe but, uh, what are we gonna eat? The Monsaic Lines don’t have resources for us all, I guess we’ll have to strike out into the desert and see what we find.”

*Abe leads an expedition party and/or the whole group of 300, they end up getting addicted to SoulStorm Brew, Abe has to right some wrongs*

[TheMooseLord]

Are JAW working on this? I cant see any mention of them in the announcement.

[Scrabaniac]

from what i've always understood.. The Glukkons lured the free slaves back into slavery.

[Vlam]

See, you guys ignore this fact: MO's website of 2001 (in flash) was darker than this...

[Nepsotic]

Are JAW working on this? I cant see any mention of them in the announcement.

No.

Probably like “hey thanks for freeing us from slavery Abe but, uh, what are we gonna eat? The Monsaic Lines don’t have resources for us all, I guess we’ll have to strike out into the desert and see what we find.”

*Abe leads an expedition party and/or the whole group of 300, they end up getting addicted to SoulStorm Brew, Abe has to right some wrongs*

Which makes way more sense. Also, way to completely misunderstand my last post.

[Slog Bait]

See, you guys ignore this fact: MO's website of 2001 (in flash) was darker than this...

MO also had the absolute darkest bad end of all of the games. I'm pretty sure it's bad end sucked all the dark out of the entire rest of the game.

Probably like “hey thanks for freeing us from slavery Abe but, uh, what are we gonna eat? The Monsaic Lines don’t have resources for us all, I guess we’ll have to strike out into the desert and see what we find.”

*Abe leads an expedition party and/or the whole group of 300, they end up getting addicted to SoulStorm Brew, Abe has to right some wrongs*

Soulstorm: Abe Saves 300 Drunks

[Manco]

But the thing is that there’s nothing really to say that Abe has to re-rescue his posse – I could easily see the story being that Abe’s tribe starts to get sick from Brew, prompting Abe to seek out the source and getting caught up in more Magog Cartel bullshit and in the process freeing more slaves.

[Scrabaniac]

So Jim Sterling is voice acting...

[Michael]

This is great news, not much to say that others haven't already but the style and tone of the announcement seems very promising. 'Big visual and cinematic leap', breaking new ground and 'Abe as you've never seen him before' really seem to suggest they're pushing the tech in a big way, especially in terms of storytelling. Big plus for me, as I was a little disappointed with the twitchy keyframe animation in New n' Tasty's cutscenes

If you look at the Abe image at the top of the press release page, you can see Abe's ponytail is shorter and rendered as individual feathers. The detail looks fantastic, can't wait to see more!

Funny that nothing has been said regarding gameplay. Nothing about improvements to the formula, etc, that you would perhaps expect; instead, lots about seeing things in a new way. In reference to NNT, it's only said that Soulstorm continues the themes that players found engaging, not the gameplay.

I don't know, but this, Soulstorm being marketed as a new game and not an Exoddus remake, the 3/4 rear view of Abe they're teasing, and Lorne previously saying he was surprised people wanted a return to 2D gameplay for NNT (implying he would have done otherwise?) has got me wondering if Soulstorm will be a full 3D game. Munch done right, if you will... Time will tell I guess!

Lastly- pushing tech, with a somewhat horror tone? Dodging meat grinders in VR, anyone?

[Slog Bait]

But the thing is that there’s nothing really to say that Abe has to re-rescue his posse – I could easily see the story being that Abe’s tribe starts to get sick from Brew, prompting Abe to seek out the source and getting caught up in more Magog Cartel bullshit and in the process freeing more slaves.

When you put it that way, the title still works excedingly well.

That would be a much better way of starting it than a bunch of ghosts telling unconscious Abe to make glukkon's stop mining their bones, though.

They're probably not going to leave that part out now that I think about it. I bet everyone getting fucked up on brew is what causes Abe's fever dream in the first place.

[Vlam]

Slog Bait, seriously, you're in bad faith. But, again, I don't mind. But you guys will be, again, pissed at Lanning.

[Havoc]

Are JAW working on this? I cant see any mention of them in the announcement.

JAW are no longer working with OWI as far as anyone knows.

[Slog Bait]

Vlam, I don't have any expectations for a dark Soulstorm. I'm still under the belief it's going to be NNT and AE's tone, form of telling and all. The only way Lorne could disappoint is by making something somehow worse than MO, and considering he has full control over this project, won't happen.

[Nepsotic]

So Jim Sterling is voice acting...

Time to boycott SoulStorm.

[SligValet]

Who could he possibly even be voiceacting? Unless he can drastically change his voice for a plethora of characters like Lorne did back in the day, I can't imagine what it is

[Vlam]

Slog Bait, Havoc is the one bashing Lanning all the time.

[Nepsotic]

I don't recall there being any big fat mongoloids in AE. Weird.

[SligValet]

Who could he possibly even be voiceacting? Unless he can drastically change his voice for a plethora of characters like Lorne did back in the day, I can't imagine what it is

Yknow he kinda looks a bit like Phleg though, now that I actually looked him up

[Slog Bait]

Slog Bait, Havoc is the one bashing Lanning all the time.

Welcome to Havoc!

[Holy Sock]

This is cool! Here we are just expecting a New n Tasty rendition of Exoddus and we're getting something reasonably fresh, apparently!

Also, AE was darker than AO in some ways. Does no one else feel this way? It had a lot more humour in its script but it had some pretty dark elements throughout.

But, Abe is still a huge goofball guys. The Mudokons are still huge goofballs in general. As much as this game could inject a lot more darkness into the franchise we've still got our farting, stumbling protagonist and his narcissistic Mudokon buddies.

[Paul]

If the whole game is like "the shrink" video level of evil then it shall be satisfying.

[Havoc]

Slog Bait, Havoc is the one bashing Lanning all the time.

You are, like, the personification of the reason why people hate the French. Stop your stupid bashing and let people enjoy what they love.

For the record, I don't bash on Lorne. I joke about the fact that he's super passionate about the world he thought up in his head over 20 years ago and always repeats his feelings. But the reason I have faith in Lorne is because the story in his head is many times more elaborate than anything we've seen so far. At every single corner in Oddworld's history he's had to cut corners with the story because they weren't technically feasible to show. AO's story had massive parts cut out and rewritten from how Lorne envisioned it. AE's story now appears to have had much more to it than what was shown on screen. MO's story was virtually completely redone because of development deadlines set by the publisher. New 'n' Tasty didn't have the time, the budget or the people to rewrite the story in any significant way.

New 'n' Tasty was an overwhelming success no matter how much you hate it, and it has put Oddworld back on the map. Now they do have the time, the budget and the people because they re-opened their own studio instead of relying on third party developers. From the looks of it they're outsourcing the modeling and the CG cutscenes to a specialized company, leaving more time for the core team to flesh out the story. All in all, Soulstorm might be the first time in Oddworld history where Lorne gets to put all his experience and lessons from past mistakes together and tell the story mostly the way he actually wants to tell it, with no technical limits or time limits or annoying publishers breathing down his neck, telling him what he can and can't do. That is why I'm excited.

Now, if all you can do is be negative, please get the fuck out of here because we're celebrating stuff over here.

[Nepsotic]

Havoc pretty much hit the nail on the head.