Excluding the recent New ’n’ Tasty remake, the last time we saw Abe in an Oddworld game was in 2001’s Oddworld: Munch’s Oddysee, where he led his fellow Mudokons to freedom after generations of enslavement at the hands of the Glukkons. And what became of our alien friends after said liberation? They got stranded in a desert, apparently. With no food to boot.
Thus is the premise of the latest offering from Oddworld Inhabitants Inc., named Oddworld: Soulstorm. In this latest game, Abe must lead his party of 300 Mudokons across a treacherous landscape in search of shelter. They will, according to the official Soulstorm website, encounter not only the dangers of the wilderness, but also “an incendiary tale of uprising and infiltration against the latest in soul-sucking consumer products.”
Speaking of soul-sucking consumerism, the lost Mudokons have but one source of solace to which they turn, which the Soulstorm press kit describes as “a delicious drink that has insidious ramifications for their newfound freedom.”
Oddworld Inhabitants states on the above site that Soulstorm will be “a big visual and cinematic leap aiming to break new ground for Oddworld.” New mechanics and puzzles will aid in weaving the extraterrestrial epic “of a volatile society pushed to its limits.”
And it will be a dark tale indeed. Series creator Lorne Lanning stated that
There was a deeper, darker, and more sinister story that we never got to tell […] Soulstorm gives us the opportunity to flesh out more meat on the bones of an original spine, but re-tell the fable from a very different angle.
Oddworld, after all, has always borne a heavier intellectual load than its cartoonish exterior might suggest. The themes of “environmentalism, capitalism, consumerism and addiction” that pervade the previous games will make a return here. Executive Producer Bennie Terry is excited to say that Soulstorm has surprises that no one will be expecting, and that it will have an especially “twisted flavor.”
No screenshots or videos of Soulstorm itself exist yet, but its official site has teased Abe’s hand and chest rendered in the game’s new visual style. His head will be revealed at a later date, when the Soulstorm Twitter account reaches an unspecified number of followers.
Oddworld: Soulstorm is slated to release in 2017. You can view its official site here.