The problem I have with Abe's Exoddus is not explicitly to do with the length of the game, but the length of the areas. For example, the Necrum Mines section is at least 3x as long as the first RF sequence from Oddysee, which would be fine if it was kept interesting, but it wasn't, and the gameplay would become boring very quickly until you reach the next segment.
I mean, can't everyone agree that as awesome as the Brewery is, they could have cut its length in half and it would have been much better? I guess then it would be even more obvious that it's just the Rupture Farms finale from Oddysee, but timestretched.

The Scrab and Paramite sections feel forced and shoehorned in, because Oddworld so we need Paramite and Scrab sections. They didn't have to do the exact same thing again, they could have done something new. I know they were on a tight deadline, but they managed to add lots of other new stuff so there was no excuse for them to copypaste that exact segment and add nothing new except slapping fucking ghost locks.

This leads me onto my biggest issue with the game: it's just Oddysee again. Sure, they add new gameplay elements every now and again to keep it (somewhat) fresh but you can't argue that AE is just a more polished Oddysee. Note the fact that when I say polish I'm referring to it in a purely technical manner. The gameplay improvements like being able to move a platform while looking in either direction and being able to talk to multiple Mudokons at once were all welcome changes which would have made AO much better, but it follows the exact same structure as the first and the timestretching is really obvious, and really grating.
Oddysee is short and sweet. It doesn't continuously introduce new gameplay mechanics as frequently as AE does, but that's because it doesn't need to do that in order to keep the gameplay from becoming stale, something AE fails at (it's like Abe's Exoddus is trying to keep a child entertained by showing it new toys and tricks every two seconds, but they're all uninteresting and the baby just liked the key-jingling it was doing before). Mainly because we saw the exact same thing done a year earlier and then it was fresh, fun and interesting enough to keep us entertained for a couple of hours. How did AE think it could do the same thing while making it nearly 3 times as long and not adding anything substantial?

AE is a great game, and it looks stunning. I'm not sure if I prefer its visuals to AO's, but it certainly is something to look at. I love them both, and from a technical standpoint AE probably stands up better, but from an artistic standpoint AO vastly outperforms it, though I guess you could say that's purely subjective. I just think AE's flaws stump it from being the sequel they wanted it to be, and had it been shorter it would have been much better.

Tl;dr: Game's fucking boring as shit I already played Oddysee don't need a fuckin nother one mate!

I don't think any of us are under the impression that Exoddus is more than Oddysee 1.5. I mean OWI were always clear that this was a bonus game rather than the next installment.

The biggest issue I can think of with Exoddus is it's story. It's a retread of Oddysee plotwise without the Quintological significance (great word eh? ;) ). BUT this time around OWI decided to flesh out the characters, define their personalities, and actually write a pretty good script. This, in my opinion, trumps the fact that Exoddus doesn't take the series to new places. And compared to Munch - which was supposed to take the story somewhere new - you can see how Exoddus succeeds in telling it's retread of a story.

I can not agree. Maybe the hub structure of the entire game feels a little played out for some but I've played the game so much I can't remember if I thought this initially (I certainly don't now). The more puzzles the merrier... the puzzles...

I personally don't think the Brewery overstays its welcome at all - and the variety in puzzles keeps things paced well. And the Brewery is comparable to Zulags 2-4 of Rupture Farms. Not the final level. Similarly the Necrum Mines isn't too long either and it introduces new concepts as a good pace - how the game works, blind Mudokons, flying Sligs, Mine cars.

And possessing the creatures. Which stopped those areas feeling like a complete redundant retread. The most obvious example of sequelitis but I think they hold up gameplaywise.

See man, completely wrong. I mean, technically, your first paragraph is what AE is. Not a proper innovative sequel.

But the new concepts aren't uninteresting. Blind Mudokons, Flying Sligs, posessing Scrabs n Paramites, Greeters, Glukkon puzzles all work very well. The game's not actually as long as you think it is (if AO is like 3-4 hours long AE isn't 9-12 hours long) which, personally, stops every area from overstaying its welcome. The art direction in the industrial envrionments are a lot better than in Rupture Farms. They're not as pixelated and there's a lot more visual variety between screens throughout (except the Bonewerkz - it kind of sucks a bit).

This is like Arkham Origins to Arkham City. But where Origins sort of just expanded things without really bringing new design with it - and thus feeling like an unnecessary retread for some - Exoddus did bring it both on the story front and the gameplay front. Which stops it from feeling like the unnecessary sequel no one wanted. But more like the game we wish Oddysee was.

I know I prefer some of Oddysee's more mysterious atmosphere - and at its core the journey of Abe has more weight to it. But Exoddus really holds it own and trumps the original in many respects.

The mines are long and tedious to play now, but the first time it was a good tutorial and I didn't mind the length at all.

On the whole Holy Sock makes pretty good points. Comparing it to Batman is a bit of a stretch I think, but it's not as dull as Nep makes out either.

I compared it because people made similar complaints with Origins as Nep is making with Exoddus. Since Origins is essentially Arkham City 1.5.

I'm with nep on almost every point. I didn't feel the mines dragged out at all though.

OWI are always throwing around meaningless words, AE is still a sequel.
I would agree with this, but in a game where story takes a backseat (and like it or not, it does), this isn't very significant. My points were about the gameplay.

The more, of the same, puzzles, the merrier of the same puzzles?
Yes, that is what I was referring to. I also don't think that the small variety in puzzles is enough to trump the fact that everything else is basically the same, and that's a good solid 1 and a half hours for a new player.


Ah, I knew this would be somebody's trump card. "But they added new concepts and new mechanics! Flying Sligs, Greeters and Mine Cars, oh my!"
Here the issue is not with the concepts but how they function as gameplay elements. They're fun for a while after they're introduced but quickly become the norm, and you realise that they aren't different or interesting enough to stay fresh, as the mechanics from the original did. In some cases, it's the opposite. Look at how many times we use Mine Cars. What, 3 times? They could have implemented them more in clever ways but they chose not to.
With Fleeches it's the opposite. They're used too much and quickly become infuriating, they're essentially just the bees from AO except you can kill them. I never liked them anyway so that's probably entirely subjective.

Yes, and this would be fine if it weren't for the fact that everything else is exactly the same. You go to a Paramite area in the wild, then you go to a Scrab area in the wild. Of course those are very vague ways of putting it, but you get what I mean. They could have done more interesting things with these creatures and the new mechanics they brought to them, like having more sections with them in industrial areas spread throughout the game as opposed to having dedicated segments for them. I think not only would it flow much better, but it wouldnt get stale nearly as fast. And hey, haven't you always wanted to see what happens when Paramites and Scrabs meet?


I never said they were.
For a first-time player who took 4 hours to beat Oddysee, I'd say it would take them at least 6-8 hours to beat Exoddus.
Not all areas overstay their welcome. I very much enjoy disk 2 up to the Brewery. It had what, 20-something Zulags? And that's not overstaying it's welcome?

I partly agree with this, AE definitely is more detailed, though I enjoy the more isolated feel Oddysee has.
Oddly, I disagree with your point about Bonewerkz. I love the grim tone it has. Very much like AO, except more like a Victorian-era factory. It's probably one of my favourite looking areas.
This is precisely my problem with Exoddus, though. It's the game OWI wanted to make first. So they remade it and added the bits they left out in the first one. The small improvements made to the actual gameplay are trivial when you compare the two games, because in my opinion if Oddysee had those improvements it would be a perfect game. Abe's Exoddus has them, but it's almost like a 1 step forward, 2 steps back scenario.

AO's atmosphere was unlike anything else at the time, which is why it saddens me that AE went with a completely different approach. The result is that, AE is more dated and AO is timeless. I guess that's my conclusion.

I took his comment to mean that Bonewerkz sucked for art variety, which I think is a fair call.

I was just expressing my own opinion about the game there. And the story of Oddworld pretty much defines these games. Gameplay is obviously more important - it's a puzzle platformer - but the story be riding shotgun!


A joke my young friend! But I do think the variety of puzzles kept AE interesting. Reading your counterargument this is going to boil down to - you found this uninteresting or tedious - I didn't. Unless we really scrutinise each level I don't think it's going to progress much further - unless someone else weighs in with a good analysis of game structure, pacing and mechanics.

But what if I think they are? The cool thing about AE is that it introduces new elements but it doesn't overplay each one. The mine car is used in the Necrum Mines - and it's fun. Trying not to run over your Mudokon pals is interesting. But it isn't overplayed. And I don't think you could get much interesting mileage out of it beyond what was already in the game. Trying to get from point A to point B but getting out to solve a puzzle so you can move forward.

Blind Mudokons add a cool element in the beginning. Flying Sligs are introduced and Slying Sligs centric puzzles are used in Disc 2 - but not enough to become bland. A whole section of the game is used for fleech puzzles (which I like because they were tense) and Scrab and Paramite possession - but it's not exploited. Fart possession becomes a feature in FeeCo but I don't feel it's overplayed. Slig centric puzzles then become much more important. Greeters add an element of unpredictability but they're not overused in disc 2. And Glukkon puzzles are saved for the Brewery and "boss" levels.

I don't think any of these are overplayed features and the ones that are dropped early (sans the car) are used in secret areas in the latter parts of the game. As I said above this is just going to boil down to opposite opinions with the same evidence. The only concept that I feel was underused were the crying Mudokons and healing Sick Mudokons from brew/torture.


Sure. They could have. And it could have been more interesting. But, as the game stands, there's enough going for those posession puzzles that they hold up to replays and create new, interesting puzzles, with these creatures. It could have been more - but it's it still is more than a retread of Oddysee puzzles.


"Oddysee is short and sweet. It doesn't continuously introduce new gameplay mechanics as frequently as AE does, but that's because it doesn't need to do that in order to keep the gameplay from becoming stale, something AE fails at (it's like Abe's Exoddus is trying to keep a child entertained by showing it new toys and tricks every two seconds, but they're all uninteresting and the baby just liked the key-jingling it was doing before)."

That's where I derived that from. But I suppose implementation is different than concept. So my mistake there.

Not for me. It felt like the finale of the game. Enough puzzles to cover almost everything you learned before. But not too much to get sick of it. It worked for me.

There's just a real lack of variety. Plus I'm not a fan of the actual levels there. Although I like Phleg's KILLEMKILLEMKILLEMKILLEMKILLEMKILLEM puzzle.

Gotta disagree. Exoddus didn't go with a completely different approach at all. It all comes back to the plot - which is why I mentioned it first. Oddysee is all about the journey of a slave discovering his true power then overthrowing the powers that be. Which creates its own sense of mystery and discovery. Exoddus is really just an extension of that final act. But I think it tells it very well. Well enough that the weaker narrative significantly elevated and we get a much better sense of the world Abe inhabits.

And the fact that I really like Exoddus' story, and it's gameplay improvements over the original, is why I still replay it over the original.

Your problems with Exoddus simply being a bonus game rather than a proper sequel are not ones I share. Comparing what it could have been to what it actually is: Exoddus is still a great game - and holds up against the original. Not something you can so with Munch for instance.

No, I don't think it drags. I've had (and still do) fun the whole time playing through it. :)

Exoddus is beautiful. For the exact reasons you don't like it.

I wanted more Abe, I got more Abe. It wasn't the exact same, but the building blocks of what made the puzzles so great in Oddysee were the same or similar. Good I liked those fundamental building blocks, and loved to see them played out in every configuration.

I'll have to play it again to get a fresh feel though, because as a kid, I had patience for anything, and loved every damn second of that game, so whether it "dragged" or not mattered very little to me, as I had no concept of the idea.

Lovely but,

we're not kids anymore. As a kid, AE was fine, I played that thing on my PSP for a while with the awkward controls even. But I'm not a kid and I can't have the same feeling playing AE that I did as a kid. I'm not judged AE from my childhood eyes, I'm judging it from my current state of mind.

Yup, glad we can agree.

i like how its so big makes it 100% better than AO

No correlation. I'm insanely huge right now and 7000% better than AO.

Oh there's definitely correlation, but causation? That's where we seem to have the largest (and bestest) disagreement.

The only thing that surprises me about AE, playing it now, is how short the game is compared to how expansive it felt when I was younger. It still plays great. AO, for me, is the game where I have to look past the bullshit save system and the lack of "All o' ya" to enjoy it.

Unfortunately I am still unable to take my nostalgia goggles off for these games so I'm a terrible judge. I agree with Abeguy though. WE GOT MORE ABE MATE!

I found the scrab/paramite vaults to be a bit of a drag/filler and rehash of AO. Only bonus was that they could now be possessed so it mixed up the gameplay and puzzles a little more.

Am I wrong in saying the last few hours of the game are basically just 'complete these 4 doors to unlock this one' then 'complete these 4 more doors to unlock this one' then 'think you're done? Don't think so m8, complete these 4 doors to unlock this one'.

This is my first ever playthrough of Abe's Exoddus, as a 24 year old. Perhaps I'm not lucky enough to be able to overlook some of its flaws due to nostalgia like a lot of people, but truthfully I've been a bit bored for a while now and it's gotten to the stage where I'm trying to complete it just because I feel like I might as well now, considering how far I've come.

Ultimately it's Oddysee part 2, like a lot of people are saying, therefore it simply cannot be a bad game. It is however very, very apparent to me that they had a tight deadline for this game and didn't spend half as much time on it as they should've.

Abe's Oddysee is Dark Side of the Moon. Arguably perfect, it'll never outstay its welcome. Abe's Exoddus is The Wall. Fantastic, for sure, but you need to be in a certain mood to see it out all the way. A mood which you just don't often find yourself in quite as much.

These are, of course, just my two cents.

Having never played exxodus, I think itd be really cool to see how they handle the remake after what all u guys have said. Personally, I cant wait.

Yeah, you pretty much summed up all my thoughts in a couple of paragraphs.

Scratch part of my post. I finally got to the soulstorm brewery thinking okay, fair enough, 5 more zulags until I'm at some kind of ending. Completed those 5, get to a second bloody hub? Look at a walkthrough to see how near the end I am, this isn't even the final hub!? Sorry, I stop playing here, that's ridiculous. That's abysmal level design.

Now I'm starting to think Exoddus is more like the TV show Dexter. 'Good', to 'Great', to 'Excellent, I love this!' To 'Oh dear lord what have they done...'

The hub structure of the final puzzles has never personally bothered me. It allows players, if they get stuck, to try and complete other other levels. When I was a lot younger this prevented me from getting very frustrated with the game and adds a little variety in replays now.

I suppose if the game has bored you this far, and you're simply going through the motions or feel obliged to finish it, the constant hub structure is only going to frustrate. The level design and my enjoyment of these puzzles has always trumped this trope they always fall back out. When I reached the Brewery I was glad to have more levels to chew on because I was enjoying the game. I imagine it was similar to how you felt when you reached another Zulag in the finale of RuptureFarms - but because there isn't as many hubs, it's shorter, and you were enjoying it, you welcomed the extra levels.

How is giving you more levels at the end of the game "bad level design"? Not to mention they're all very good levels. (though the one with the drills can go fuck itself.).

It's meant to be part of the finale of the game. The whole reason Abe went on his journey. I loved how the SoulStorm Brewery was huge and complex. It was a long slog (heh) to the end making it more satisfying when you finally blew up the damn place.

I get this idea, however there's a point where it just starts to feel like you're not making progress.

If there were any more than 3 Zulags I could get that, but I feel like there’s just enough there to be satisfying. None of the levels drag on for too long either.

I do get that hub after hub could get a bit tedious for some players. But I never really shared the sentiment.

Looking at reviews in 1998 I haven't seen it come up. Any criticisms of the game's design extends to Oddysee - trial and error gameplay for example. So I don't think this is particularly a case of nostalgia goggles.

Perhaps, by modern standards, it's not particularly inspired but I get the impression that in 1998, reviewers at least, didn't have a problem with the game's hub structure.

It wasn't remotely complex, and that was the problem.
Also, it went on forever and got boring as fuck.

Agreed. Unfortunately I don't think shoe-horning in some extra filler to try and make up for otherwise rushed development equals a good game.

I think there are some valid points in this thread that, at the time, it wasn't as much of a problem, but looking back 17 years later (which is of course unfair in itself) the cracks are a whole lot more visible.

I think Nepsotic summed it up perfectly in that Exoddus is great but a little dated, whereas Oddysee appears to be timeless.

IMO, Oddysee is the one that seems dated. Annoyingly steep learning curve, no quicksave, and several other quirks that were fixed by Exoddus, like only leading one Mudokon at a time. It was also short. Like, really short.

Exoddus fixed all of these issues.
I love this game to death and it shows. On Steam, I played 8 hours of Oddysee and 16 of New n Tasty. Exoddus? 35 hours.

Agree whole-heartedly with the steep learning curve, I first played Oddysee as like a...6 year old or something, but I didn't manage to complete it fully until 10 years later. I kinda think that Exoddus is harder though, so it definitely needs the quicksave a little more. Oddysee was frustrating at times for sure, but never to the point where I gave up.

Perhaps I'd need to do a side by side comparison to be truly fair, but there have been times in Exoddus where I remember thinking to myself that I would've simply stopped playing at that point had quicksave not existed. So to me that sorta evens them out. Perhaps that's due to Oddysee being considerably shorter so the end was always in sight? No idea, all I know is I've somehow found the patience to complete it a few times.

Are those playtimes how long it's taken you to complete each game? Or how long it's taken you to complete them a few times? This is where I seem to differ from a large portion of the gaming community. I personally don't really see how a longer game automatically makes it better, nor do I immediately think a game is crap just because it's shorter than anticipated. If anything that's a pro, it means I'm more likely to play through it multiple times. I mean, I love Legend of Zelda games, but I doubt I'll ever complete many of them more than once.

If a game is consistently delivering a good experience then of course having it be longer is a benefit.

All in the eye of the beholder. We shall find no consensus in this place.

What do you think would be added if they were to instead create a new 2d Abe, or other odd-creature game that could ease your discomfort?

Absolutely agreed.

For your second question:
- Keep the quicksave idea, obviously
- Keep the ability to retread the exact same steps (if you know what I mean?)
- Focus almost absolutely and entirely on atmosphere, story and art style, the things which made Oddysee what it was
- Don't shoehorn in extra shit just for the sake of making the game longer. If after all your ideas have come to fruition and the game only takes 4 hours to complete, that isn't a problem. Going back and thus making it 8 hours to complete just for the sake of it, is

That's all they need to do.

Although I completely disagree with your opinion on Exoddus, Lorne has gone on record saying that when they developed the game he thought everything had to be more - more cutscenes, more levels etc - for it to be worth it for consumers. I'm not entirely sure he's still of that mindset anymore, though.

That's totally fair enough, perhaps that's where I was doomed to feel this way all along. I've always been of the opinion that video games should be seen more like any other art - be it music or film for example - where length/size is generally not something that is even once considered. If it conveys what you want to say then that's all that matters, even if that is relatively succinct.

But I totally understand why a games designer may not be able to have that view. Video games consumers are always going to be a lot more concerned about getting bang for their buck, so this is understandable.

Ha, I say this, yet I work for a video games company. We make football games though, so not really the same thing...

You know, this has made me think about AE in a slightly different way – what exactly was OWI trying to say with this game?

The overall themes are made apparent in Necrum and SoulStorm Brewery.

Necrum is a criticism of the exploitation of the native population, the theft and exploitation of their ancestral lands, and (indirectly) a criticism of the industrial exploitation of natural resources. This makes it an important area of the game, and the Necrum vaults underscore this by contrasting with the industrialized area – showing what the land used to be like before its spoiling.

SoulStorm Brewery meanwhile serves a similar role to RuptureFarms in AO, showing the harmful effects of rampant consumerism – the Brewery exists to create Brew, which is made through exploitation of slave labor and natural resources and destruction of land. There’s also commentary on how Brew is used to keep the Mudokon slaves subjugated through addiction, which is something that has an unsettling resemblance to areas of human society and history.

The other industrial areas in the game have less clear messages. The best I can guess is that Feeco and Bonewerkz are parodies of Victorian-style industry, sprawling masses of brick and metal that are filthy and produce masses of pollutants; while the Slig Barracks are perhaps making a statement for how industry and military force often go hand-in-hand (private militaries do exist in real life, after all)?

But it does make me think twice about how necessary those areas of the game were. Without them, I feel like the game would have been two short and would have placed too much focus on the two main environments, but at the same time there isn’t much of a narrative purpose for them. They’re distinctive locales with lots of personality, but that doesn’t contribute much to the overall message of the game. Bonewerkz and Feeco are at least tangentially linked to the main story (Feeco transports the raw materials, Bonewerkz processes) but even then it’s not a strong link.

I guess you could say technically that AE drags on, or that it's not as good as AO. I really just think that it's a game I enjoy playing through occasionally and haven't delved too much deeper into that. I definitely find it more playable than AO, even though AO is a better experience

I'm all for analysis, but my god why does everything anyone analyses on the internet have to come off in a negative light?

This is probably the core of the problem. Hubs are annoying because you always keep returning to the same place for no reason and feel like you're not going anywhere. I've never really understood the hub design to begin with. Necrum Mines and FeeCo didn't have hubs and that's probably the most enjoyable level for that exact reason. Because you feel like you're making progress through the level.

The Brewery would have been much more enjoyable if all the zulags would have just been a linear path instead of the hub design.

I believe the Hub Design is there because it prevents players getting stuck on difficult puzzles - and thus decreases frustration from the inability to progress. It's just that Exoddus and Oddysee are cinematic platformers.