Comfort games like Animal Crossing: New Horizons and порнография по беларускиFall Guys: Ultimate Knockout may have dominated the hellscape that is 2020 so far — but it's Abe and the folks over at Oddworld Inhabitants who seem best positioned to produce the year's most timely title.
Oddworld: Soulstorm, which began production in 2016 before facing delays, is officially slated for a 2020 release on PC, PlayStation 4, and, yes, the much-hyped PlayStation 5. The title has been teased as the "true sequel" to the beloved 1997 classic Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee, placing fans back in the three-toed shoes of franchise hero Abe and once again asking them to save their fellow Mudokons from the tyrannical Glukkon overlords.
Franchise creators Lorne Lanning and Sherry McKenna admit it's an especially tense premise to explore in times as dire as ours — what with fresh national crises seemingly popping up each day.
In a video exclusive to Mashable, the Oddworld: Soulstormcreative team breaks down how Oddworld's storytelling legacy has laid the groundwork for the forthcoming narrative they can't wait to share with fans. (Naturally, they do so in the most Oddworld way imaginable, so expect multiple, lingering, close-up shots of meat and some heavy philosophical narration.)
Speaking on the phone with Mashable, Lanning and McKenna answered our most burning questions about the upcoming title, Abe's future, and making games in our 2020 dystopia.
The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.
What inspired you to produce this video reexamining Oddworld’s philosophical history?
Sherry McKenna: It’s still Lorne’s philosophy that he turned me onto 25 or 30 years ago. That’s really when we started thinking, “How do we get our philosophy across in video games?” But with everything that’s happening right now, I thought, “If we come out with this game now, the players are going to think we’re just copying what’s happening in today’s world.” They may not know how long it takes to do all this stuff. I was just worried people might think, “They’re just copying, or trying to cash-in on what’s happening today.”
So that’s what inspired us to put it together and get it out there. I mean, anybody who knows Oddworld knows it’s always been about causes, without trying to be political because we don't want to be political. That was very important to us.
"Things are going to get more overwhelming, more intense, and much, much heavier on Abe. "
How do you differentiate between philosophical gameplay and political gameplay?
Lorne Lanning:I always tried to not go into the political realm because as the world gets more complex with more sources of information of wildly different varieties, I feel like the political landscape is only getting more divisive. And so I was more inspired by George Orwells and the Aldous Huxleys of history who asked, "How do we transcend short term political concepts and ideas and focus more on larger human condition, circumstances and what individuals do in those overwhelming circumstances?"
SM: One of the things that I like the most about [Lorne's approach] and Oddworld is that I never feel defensive. I don't have to say, well, I feel this way and someone else feels this way in Oddworld. It's just obvious: You know what is good and what's not good. It has nothing to do with politics. So while one person may feel one way and one person may feel another, hopefully we all feel it's the human condition and we all hopefully feel that we want to make the human condition better. And that's one of the reasons I was just so entranced with Oddworld.
Lorne Lanning and Sherry McKenna Credit: courtesy of oddworld inhabitans Playing the Oddworld: Soulstormdemo with you at E3 last year, I was really blown away by how intricate the gameplay has become. Does the narrative and “Quarmic” complexity of Soulstorm match those heightened mechanics?
LL: Absolutely. We wanted to turn the dial up on that a bit with more choices. We've always had what we call "Quarma" in our games that led to different endings, but we wanted that more reflective on a moment-by-moment basis rather than at the end when you discover it all at once.
SEE ALSO: The unforgettable gaming memes of the 2000sIn Soulstorm, it gets a lot more intense conceptually because we’re dealing with something I think is very relevant. The journey is going to be much deeper and much more full of conflict. Things are going to get more overwhelming, more intense, and much, much heavier on Abe.
Oddworld fans are such a unique group of gamers. What do you think Abe’s fans who keep coming back are like, generally speaking?
LL: You know, it’s a pretty wide spectrum. Sometimes I encounter people that are very timid and polite in their presence. And at other times, I encounter guys who are really intimidating and macho and covered in tattoos.
"It’s the underdog in us that associates with Abe."
SM:And you know what’s really interesting? The kind of guys that are covered in tattoos and these hardcore guys? When they hurt Abe or don’t get good Quarma, they’re always devastated. You don’t expect that. It’s really, really rewarding when [those sorts of gamers] really take it to heart that Abe suffered because they did not do the right thing.
Why do you think that is?
LL:It’s the underdog in us that associates with Abe. A sincere underdog is something that really captures us. So I think our audience tends to be aware of issues, of social issues, of things that affect the psyche, and they're actually looking for more meaningful content [that represents the underdog].
That connection that people feel for the underdog is kind of like the connection they feel for babies, or puppies, or kittens. That innocence is something we’ve really tried to capture in Abe and in Munch, and to some extent, The Stranger. And we wanted to offset that against a very dark, dangerous world that was dealing with some deep concepts that were a little intimidating and chilling. Putting a character of innocence and vulnerability with good intentions in the heart of that landscape is part of the contrast and dichotomy that we were looking for within the property. It gives us nice opportunities for warm feelings, and at the same time, opportunities to experience brutal moments.
That contrast seems to have been heightened to its most extreme form in Soulstorm, at least based on what we saw in the June announcement trailer. How have fans reacted to that sneak peek?
LL: The trailer that went out for the PlayStation 5 livestream got some [reactions that] surprised, but excited me. We have the luxury of YouTubers covering these events and giving their opinions, and a bunch of them said, "Wow. This is a lot darker." And I was excited by that, because the game isa lot darker but Abe is not darker.
You got some big reactions to Abe's uh... "de-stitching."
LL: We thought we might.
SM: Let's be honest, we hoped we would.[Laughter] You're trying to get the game done, you've got all the other things you're dealing with — "We don't have enough money" or "We don't have enough time" or whatever. It was so cool to see how fans would go back and forth about whether or not[Abe cutting his stitches was a good thing.] The response was more than we could have hoped for.
LL: Well, and there was something that was mentioned to me by, I think by someone in Hollywood, who said, "Well, how big can your character get when he's got stitches in his lips?" So I was seriously questioning myself.[Laughter] The reason we did that in the very beginning was a symbol of oppression and voice. In this title, we want to push that.
I’ve gotta ask, do you have any news to share on what date we can expect the game to release?
SM: Here's the God's honest truth: If I knew when Sony was going to release the PS 5, if they would tell us that, then we would have a better idea of when we'll be able to release our game.The truth of the matter is we really don't know yet, and we're not gonna know until Sony finally gives it up.
LL: Fortunately, for the game production we don't have far to go and that's a huge relief.
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