[Vlam]

Here's an interview from 1998:

< Greg > When Abe's Oddysee was released last year Oddworld Inhabitants was very vocal about the fact that they had mapped out a "quintology" of titles. Now that this title is being released I have to ask, wasn't Munch's Oddysee supposed to be the second title? Where does Abe's Exoddus fit in?

< Lorne > Yes, Munch's Oddysee was scheduled to be the second game of the Quintology and we had not planned on doing a title outside of the Quintology. However, we found that we could not achieve what we wanted with Munch's Oddysee on the current level of technology (PSX, 120MHZ PC) and that created a dilemma for us. We would not be releasing another Oddworld title until the new console systems arrived (PSX II, Sega Katana, 500MHZ PC).

Munch is going to be in 3D like you've never seen and we need this next technological jump to pull it off. You can't do the character personalities, art quality, and AI qualities that Abe's Oddysee has and do real-time 3D on the current level of technology. That's why we chose to do a "2 1/2-D" game in the first place. Character appeal, entertainment value, and fun factor are most important to us. We won't do real-time 3D and compromise art, animation, or charm. However, many PlayStation owners sent us email and they really, really wanted another game on the PlayStation. Our game designers also wanted to do one more version of the same game style that would achieve and do many things that they weren't able to do in the first game. So we decided to do one more PlayStation title, picking up right from where Abe's Oddysee left off and ending right where Munch's Oddysee would begin. We also had a lot of story points that we wanted the gamer to learn about before we entered the world of Munch. Thus, we came to the conclusion to build Abe's Exoddus. So we look at Abe's Exoddus as though it is a bonus game. It's bigger than Abe's Oddysee, it's better than Abe's Oddysee, it has all new levels, environments, puzzles, and story, but it's not a Quintology game. Munch is still the second game in the Quintology. Overall, we found that we will probably be doing a bonus game several times in between the Oddysee games that compose the Quintology. Sorry if it's confusing, but basically, the Quintology games are all Oddysee games

http://web.archive.org/web/199901290...ials/oddworld/