Something I'd really like to know more about is these new OWI studios in California and the UK. Who's working there, how big is the team, etc?

Edit: Doing some light digging on LinkedIn - there's currently 7 people who have OWI as their current employer. All of them have their privacy settings too high for me to see names, but I can identify Lorne Lanning and Bennie Terry from their profile pictures. The other six include a marketing manager in Belfast, the CEO (is that still Sherry McKenna or did the job change hands a few years back?), a HR/admin manager, a senior level designer, and an illustrator/designer/production person (all in or around California). The OWI business page is listed as "51-200 employees" and has 8 people connected to it, 7 of which are the people previously mentioned and 1 having no visible details.

So, who wants to see the Oddworld: Soulstorm image of Abe's chest? We're so close to our target now so spread the word! #soulstorm

— Oddworld @ GDC (@OddworldInc) March 18, 2016

They are literally not going to reveal the chest until they get to 20k followers. I doubt we'll see the face any time soon.

Well it's a good way to earn some attention. Can't really blame them honestly. It's the way social media works nowadays.

I'll imagine they'll release the images anyway regardless of new followers. They'll just do it a bit later.

Abe's chest - revealing when we hit 20k followers. We're amazed at the response so far, but just 100 more to go! pic.twitter.com/a4FbtUuJaY

— Oddworld @ GDC (@OddworldInc) March 18, 2016

Soulstorm Announcement on New n' Tasty's Steam page.



E: 20K goal has been hit

I'm refreshing their twitter and the Soulstorm page every 10 seconds. They might be going off the full counter though, which is at 19,962.

The hype! The hyyyyype!

@OddworldInc nearly there... pic.twitter.com/QNK5v5c3YI

— Oddworld @ GDC (@OddworldInc) March 18, 2016

CHEST!

http://www.oddworld.com/soulstorm/chestfull.jpg

Looks good :)
Edit: So we can see it on here

Congratulations - we did it! Thanks! Here's Abe's chest - for the high-res version, see - https://t.co/EMWN5PFZyv pic.twitter.com/hMT150i5J2

— Oddworld @ GDC (@OddworldInc) March 18, 2016

IT IS HERE.


E:Xavier and Scrabaniac are speedy shitters.

EE: Why do Mudokons have belly buttons if they're born from eggs

I was literally just thinking that!!!!

Oh my god!:fuzgrin:

I asked that very question. Daniel Morse linked me this

edit: Crash post

I wonder if his chest tattoo will have greater power than helping Mudokons pass gas this time around.

It does look pretty nifty, though.

The big twist's gonna be they aren't born from eggs. They copulate like humans.

That would also invalidate MO canon, which is always a good thing.

Well MO barely has a story to invalidate.

Speaking of, does this mean a redux of MO could be a possibility? It might be worth developing that story first before they ever went to Squeek.

Holy Sock, MO has a story.

though I appreciate this idea, and I think MO, could use a redux, they'll never finish the quintology if they continue to retread stories they've already told

Again, that looks amazing. The detail is just... wow. Now I can't wait to see what they actually did to his head and if his expression changed at all.

I really hope they don't remake MO. It's well overdue time for Oddworld to make brand new games.

If they remake MO it's going to get the same treatment as Exoddus/Soulstorm anyway, but on an even larger scale. Any remake of MO is probably not even going to be recognizable as such.

But I don't want them to ruin MO's atmosphere by making it overly goofy.

oh wait

I wonder what's going on with Abe's scars, like yeah he worked in a meat processing plant but those stitch marks look pretty Phre$h fresh.

The tattoos look alot more industrial than tribal now, you can almost see places for bolts to go in even.

The scars on his body look pretty bad. They look more like open wounds than scar tissue.

I hope he doesn't have too many on his face

I was thinking that too. For me, it makes sense on his hands- he was a cleaner working in a factory with dangerous machinery. Let's face it, the hands would be the first thing to go!

But seeing the deep scars on the shoulders, for example, I'm a little concerned there's a concerted effort for, shall we say, more obvious grit? Like, for the sake of being darker, covering him in terrible scarring just to prove a point.

Can you imagine? 'Scars! Deep ones everywhere! People need to be able to see how much he's been through! Ooh ooh, and he's got an eye missing! And a dent in his head from having part of the skull caved in!'

I jest, I don't think it'll be that severe ;) However I will say that too much detail for the sake of it might be a bit of a detriment, and it'd be a shame if he ended up looking too different from the Abe we know and love.

I can kinda understand scars on Abe's body if he were beaten up by countless Sligs whilst working in Rupturefarms.

Abe has his chest tattoo in the Soulstorm renders, so he has at the very least endured the Necrum trials (assuming Necrum is still in the new story) as well.

I can totally understand the (non tribal) scarring from a narrative point of view, undoubtedly it makes sense considering his ordeals :) however, I'm not sure I want to see it? I'll reserve judgement until I see the full thing! It's personal preference after all, and within reason it could look quite cool.

But there's always a suspension of disbelief in these things. To me, Oddworld has always had dark themes and absurdly dark settings, juxtaposed with comedic and honestly quite innocent characters. In my opinion, making Abe himself grittier, in terms of design or character, might lose some of that appeal.

Looks wicked. Why do I feel like his expression is what will make or break the theme of soulstorm?

But so far I'm digging it. A lot.

These things aren't mutually exclusive.

I now pronounce it official OWF fanon: Mudokons are monotremes!

:fuzconf:Do you think they'll add more mudokens like they did in NnT? Or do you guys think it be to many, like imagine how hard it would be to 100% a speed run with some crazy number of muds like 500

The reason why they added more muds to NnT is because they'd also added the 'All y'all' gamespeak command. It always was in AE, so the gameplay matches it already.

You guys don't see my point. I'm not talking about whether or not the scars make sense being where they are, I'm saying they don't look like scars. They look like deep cuts that have only just stopped bleeding.

Well, he did just come back from surviving out in the wilderness for a day, being chased by Scrabs and Paramites, rolling and running over rocks and wood, making his way back through the free fire zone which is probably full of barbed wire, dodging heavy machinery inside a huge safety hazard of a factory and was caught by the Sligs, hung above a meat grinder and barely got out alive. The abuse his body went through is sort of to be expected. And if these renders are from after getting the chest scar, it would also mean he was hurled out by the Necrum Mines explosion.

Again they wouldn't look like that. It's obvious that these are supposed to be scars but they just look weird.

Perhaps they'll be more obvious when we see the new Abe model fully textured.

If they were scars the skin would be slightly raised right? I mean i have a few scars and they definitely don't look like the model.

Yeah scar tissue looks completely different.