[skillya_glowi]

Oddworld has indeed changed a lot. Abe's Oddysee and Exoddus had a depth, a beauty to them (AO possessed much more of it than AE, though, IMO) that Munch's Oddysee was entirely without. I'll have to say one thing, though - Munch's Oddysee had the potential to be a wonderful game. I haven't played it, but I have watched all the important FMVs and I find that the Oddworld they portrayed still holds on to some of its uniqueness. The gameplay, however, from what I see, killed it. Munch was an ingeniously designed character, and the story partially had the darkness of the Oddworld conveyed through AO and AE. It's a shame that OWI went through such pains with that game and it turned out to be so much less than they were striving to make it.

Stranger's Wrath, though, is a completely different matter. I haven't played it either, but I've seen it played, and I've seen the FMVs. It looks very impressive, gameplay, graphics, story and all...but I just can't see Oddworld in it.
I've said this multiple times, but I remember Lorne saying...can't remember his exact words, but it was about Oddworld heroes not being muscle-bound and having big guns, but "chumps like you and me who live in an overwhelming and uncaring world." And then .. ta-da! They release a first-person shooter.

I agree with T-Nex, that it had a lot to do with the fact that Farzad and Olds left OWI. If I remember correctly, Steven Olds designed most of the ground basics of Abe's Oddysee, but wasn't present during production of Abe's Exoddus...Despite that, Oddworld was able to retain some of its style in AE and perhaps a tiny bit in MO. However, during production of Stranger's Wrath, Raymond Swanland led the production design team. He's a wonderful artist with an exceptional eye for detail, but his designs just somehow didn't mash with the work of Olds and Farzad.

I guess we have to accept that Abe's Oddysee and Abe's Exoddus were one-of-a-kind games, and nothing like them will be made by Oddworld Inhabitants again. It makes me really sad, because I remember Lorne saying that he already planned the story for every game in the Quintology. I suppose there never will be a Quintology...Lorne has moved on to bigger and better things, and I guess that's just the way things are.