Abe can also chant to open portals to free any Mudokons following him, and to possess Sligs (the guards that patrol Rupture Farms) in order to infiltrate enemy lines.Ī few notable changes have been made to the proceedings, however. Players still run, jump, sneak, hide in shadows, and talk to their fellow Mudokons. The gameplay is also largely the same as it was in the original, albeit with some modern tweaks to make Abe control more fluidly (for the most part).
If anything, the excessively movie-esque games of today could do well for themselves by taking a page from Oddworld’s book on how to tell a video game story. I can’t complain, Oddworld always did a great job at telling a meaningful story, but doing it in a way that’s still expressed with the simplicity of video game storytelling of its time. The cutscenes are recreated word for word, but with modern graphics and a few extra cinematics implemented on occasion. Realizing that he and his fellow Mudokons will soon be the next item on the lunch menu, Abe decides to escape from Rupture Farms and free his fellow Mudokon slaves. I can understand if the original image was considered too graphic, but why replace it with a popsicle? It kind of takes away from the severity of the moment). The story here is identical to that of the original release, told with a much stronger graphical sheen, of course: Abe is a Mudokon slave at Rupture Farms, the “biggest meat processing plant on Oddworld.” With the Paramites and Scrabs – Rupture Farms’s favorite meat sources – starting to turn up thin, CEO Mullock the Glukkon decides to turn their Mudokon slaves into their newest food product, which Abe happens to overhear after eavesdropping on a board meeting (for reasons I don’t understand, the remake uses the image of a popsicle shaped like a Mudokon head found in the censored international version of the original game for Rupture Farms’ “new and tasty” product, as opposed to the Mudokon head on a stick found in the US version of Abe’s Oddysee. Though it also has to be said that there are still some notable bugs present in New ‘N’ Tasty, and that its faithfulness to the original game may come at the cost of some missed opportunities to be something more. And well, that’s exactly what New ‘N’ Tasty provides: a faithful recreation of Abe’s original adventure that still finds time to make some much-appreciated modernizations to the game. While it may be a tad disheartening that the only “new” Oddworld game released since Stranger’s Wrath is technically not a new entry at all, Abe’s Oddysee, though a classic of its time, was definitely in need of some updating. Though New ‘N’ Tasty suffered from some bugs at launch (many of which have been worked out in the years since), and some fans were displeased with some of the cosmetic updates it made to Abe’s Oddysee, New ‘N’ Tasty proved successful enough that Oddworld Inhabitants decided to use it as a launching pad to reboot the series, with its upcoming 2021 follow-up, SoulStorm – a quasi-remake of Abe’s Exoddus – replacing Munch as the second proper installment in the originally planed five-part “Quintology” of Oddworld titles. Though the partnership between Oddworld Inhabitants and Just Add Water has since dissolved, their tenure together was successful in relaunching Oddworld, first with HD re-releases of Munch’s Oddysee and Stranger’s Wrath, and then notably with a full-on remake of Abe’s Oddysee, titled New ‘N’ Tasty, which was released in 2014.
Things turned around for the better for Oddworld Inhabitants when, in 2010, Indie Developer Just Add Water jumped in to help bring the Oddworld series back into the spotlight. From there, it seemed like the sky was the limit for what Oddworld could be.Īaand then Oddworld Inhabitants put a halt on all game development shortly after Stranger’s release.ĭisillusioned by turbulent relationships with publishers, Oddworld creator Lorne Lanning and company decided to try a new venture and create an animated film titled Citizen Siege, though the economic downturn of the late 2000s put an end to that dream as well.
Like the Phoenix rising from the ashes, or Stone Cold Steve Austin emerging from “The Ringmaster,” Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath took the Oddworld series in a bold new direction after the disappointment of Munch’s Oddysee.