New Oddworld "Timeline"
 

Now that we know Soulstorm will re-write the story of Abe's Exoddus (and probably something about Munch's Oddysee) , i just wanted to open this thread to speak about it (after Xavier's suggest).

so this is what i think.

i take this thing in 2 timelines:

OLD TIMELINE: Abe's Oddysee, Abe's Exoddus, Munch's Oddysee (+Stranger's Wrath)

NEW TIMELINE (REBOOT): New N Tasty , Soulstorm , Munch's Oddysee "2.0" (the original one from Lorne's mind) (+Stranger's Wrath)

Now the only thing that we don't know is Munch's Exoddus. In the NEW TIMELINE , there are 2 ways:

1) or Soulstorm would probably have a big piece of story about Munch's Oddysee, so Munch's Oddysee will be "re-made" with the original story of Munch's Exoddus (so in short Munch's Oddysee will be Munch's Exoddus).

2) or Soulstorm will be the original "Abe's Exoddus" story only and then we'll have Munch's Oddysee "2.0" (original story without cuts) and Munch's Exoddus as apart.

Tell me what you're thinking about this.

Or tell me your possible version.

I'll copy what I wrote in the other thread:

The first one could be a pain in the ass for OWI, since they need to remake the entire series in this case. And I don't think they're really going to add Munch in Soulstorm.

The second one a pain too due to the same reason of before, but more reasonable and affordable.

Anyhow I believe Soulstorm it's gonna be more than AE. A plot rebuilded, a new game for real. And I have the feeling that this game it's going to be more dark than Exoddus and the other titles. Something that we OW Fans never seen before. It could be the start of something new too, but not tasty for sure. Indeed, something disgusting (in the good way).

Stranger’s Wrath is standalone and has very few ties to the other games, so it will very likely remain canon.

But for Munch’s Oddysee, that’s totally up in the air now. If Soulstorm differs significantly from Exoddus, then it might require an MO remake. But if it’s similar enough, they may just treat MO as canon and move on to a new game set after MO.

As much as I’d like to see MO redone properly, at this point I’d personally rather they just move to do a new game after Soulstorm. It’s been so long since we’ve really seen anything new in Oddworld, I’d like to get back to that.

Mmh yeah , i agree with that.

I have a feeling Soulstorm is going to stick to the main outline of Exoddus's story, but throw in some new twists. Tweak it a bit, flesh it out, make it darker.
I have yet to play New 'n Tasty, but from my understanding it's pretty much identical to Oddyssey, correct? In terms of overall story?

What I'm getting at is that I'd love to see this trend continue. New 'n Tasty was basically Oddyssey, Soulstorm will be Exoddus with a story overhaul. Third game? Potentially Munch's Oddysey but with an all new story with very few connections to the original. Maybe the barest of bare minimum.
(Stranger's Wrath can remain where it is as it has no ties to the other three.)

After the potential third game, I'd love to see new content. Finish up the story. After reading through Nathan's interview, it's gotten me really excited for what Oddworld could be and where things would have gone. Hopefully Soulstorm will prove strong enough to revive the franchise fully.

New 'n' Tasty! - Soulstorm - unknown.

The story in MO is so thin and gutted that it might as well not exist in the first place. AE got a remake because fans asked for it. MO should get a remake because it can't possibly be used to build story on. Especially after the shift to the incredibly dark tone of Soulstorm vs the overly comical setting of MO.

What we're going through right now is a proper reboot of the entire Oddworld franchise. The old games should be forgotten in terms of canon. At this point everything that happened in the old timeline is being re imagined from scratch (with the exception of Abe's Oddysee). Things might start to overlap and we are already seeing small elements from MO in Soulstorm. The Mudokon resistance was never even mentioned in AE and was only suggested in MO. But in the new timeline the resistance plays a main role directly after the events at RuptureFarms. That's already a huge change.

My expectation is that Soulstorm is going to throw out an amazing amount of new lore to play around with. And I agree that we should be looking at this in an 'old timeline', 'new timeline' fashion instead of trying to mix and match old and new games together.

Edit: Stranger's Wrath was essentially a spin-off. It could honestly fit in both timelines at this point unless Vykers somehow get retconned.

"Latamire"

"Song of Munch"

"Gabbiar"

"Sonar"

"Lungs"

I can think of those titles off the top of my head.

i've heard that Abe's Oddysee wasn't re-built with New N Tasty (i mean the story) because Lorne wanted to maintain it as the "iconic" game of the entire Oddworld's saga, and because it's the ONLY ONE game that has a complete story, so there wasn't the necessity to change it in NNT.

New 'n' Tasty was not re-built because they simply didn't have the resources to do it. There was not enough money or time to rewrite the story, much less to come up with new level designs and stuff like that. NnT is what gave OWI the means to go big with Soulstorm. Before that they were essentially broke.

Yeah one guy who I've known for a while now suggests that maybe Soulstorm may lead to a Abe trilogy.

I think you might be right, and I’m really torn because on the one hand, I’d rather just see more stuff instead of retreading old ground, but on the other the prospect of a completely revamped Munch game does sound very promising as a follow-on from Soulstorm.

If the Munch remake was a completely different game and significantly advanced the story and the lore, then I might be OK with it.

I'm personally not that interested in seeing any form of Munch's Oddysee as the next game installment. It never captivated me that much when I first played it, and I just sort of have a sour taste in my mouth from it as well. Bear in mind I also bought the GBA version, which lowered my opinion of it even more haha :D I'm willing to be pleasantly surprised by a Munch remake with a full, engaging story though, but it'd have to be really good.

1st of all, it's my fault for a new Thread. Since the other Thread is for the ARG. But so many Guys was interested to talk about the Lore from SS, i asked the Admin for an extra Thread for it. Maybe this Thread goes Dead after the ARG goes on, but i'm full of hope it doesn't.
- - - - -

@Soulstorm: We have Blue-Ray Discs now ! So the Story of SS could go many, many hours! And i hope they fill it up! Since OWI told us, the Story will be darker than Exoddus was - the Story of Exoddus wasn't that dark for me. Bones aren't that cruel like killing Pals for Meat in OD/NnT. Maybe cause the Muds where blind, dunno. - so i'm fire as hell for the new Lore !
Also i want many changes in SS ! Give the Muds a hard Time, so the Gamers get the absolute feeling for free them all! The next thing what would be awesome, are they taking revenge on the Gluks? I hope so. Ugly Basterds! Just kidding, i like them. Lulu was the best.

@New Munch Lore: We know they managed to get the last Can of Gabbiar and Munch wanted to breed them in Ma Spa(the Pic.). That's all we know from ME. And my thought is, it should go on right here! Also Lady Margret(Queen of the Gluks & Chief of the Castel) needs new Lungs. The best Lungs fitting for her are from Gabbiar. So here i go on with the new Lore.
Lady Margret is mad as hell, since she is on a Lung-Machine now. And want the whole Gluks to find the Eggs, since Lulu don't have them anymore. Do the Gluks know about Ma Spa? They do! And they come to get the lil' tadpole's for their Mum. And Munch have to defend them. Here is something i lack on. Cause he can't do this all alone. Abe needs a comeback, but how?

Another Plan i have is; while Munch fights at Ma Spa, Abe & the Muds raiding the Castel for final Freedom. So u switch between them, playable. Wouldn't that be awesome?! What ya think?

Ma Spa:
http://img5.fotos-hochladen.net/uplo...chubkzspdq.jpg

This post is from the other thread, but I'll reply here:
That's the lore as of 2008. Previous to that it was said that all muds had their lips stitched to prevent any risk of chanting, but most of them removed them once they were freed.

But Abe can chant with a stitched Mouth. So this Theory don't really works.

It is indeed a possibility. Peter from OWI has said (basically) that the Quintology doesn't matter anymore.

i've spoken with Lanning on Facebook , he said that he hopes to finish the Quintology.

But i think he's not probably 100% sure.

The idea was that they loosened up over time. Personally I liked the idea that all enslaved Mudokons had them much better than some irrelevant story about Abe's childhood. It makes the enslavement part all the more grim, similar to sewing shut the eyes.

To be fair at this point I don't really care if they are going to do the full quintology, I just want to see the story move on in a satisfying way :)

he replied to me 2 weeks ago

Yeah, same here. Five games or 15, I’m happy as long as we get the full story.

And any side stories along the way are most welcome.

New 'n' Tasty.
Soulstorm

...

Gabbier? :fuzconf:

My personal opinion is that it'll be considerably clearer what the long term intentions are for things like the quintology post-Soulstorm.

As for getting the full story - Abe's full story - that's very much the plan.

You always tell us exactly what we want to hear, Alex. <3

I touched on this in the ARG thread, but I'll elaborate more here.

After playing through the swimming portions of Inside (from the team that developed Limbo; great experience btw) I couldn't help but think about how a 2D re-imagining of Munch's Oddysee would work and I honestly think if OWI were to ever go about redoing Munch, it would be much wiser and safer to keep it in 2D rather than going into full 3D "Oddivision". If they were to go 3D, it would potentially be best to stick with fixed camera angles, like in this beta visualisation.

I'm torn between the two options. On the one hand, going 3D is a great way to flesh out the world and make it feel more like a real place, but I can't help but feel that this style of gameplay is just better suited to a sidescroller point of view. All I know for sure is that if I have to collect Spooce shrubs to open a gate one more time, I might just go crazy.

Ah that's very good to hear. :)

For some reason this has me even more hyped for Soulstorm. :D

Alex, I think you've made all of our days! I love Munch, but I'm excited to see the games take a new direction, and expand the universe. I personally can't wait, to finally meet Sam and the Lady Margaret.

EDIT: Do you think we'll finally see all of the pieces to Molluck's trial with the executives?

We might have to wait a bit longer for that, my dear. :P