Lorne Lanning and the Oddworld Inhabitants development team did it their way. No big publishers. No rushed schedule. No creative compromises. The next entry in the always-planned quintology (take that, Alien Quadrilogy!) of Oddworld games is finally well underway after the studio voluntarily shut down in 2005, made a bunch of money from the old Abe games selling well on PC, reopened the studio, and funded the New and Tasty remake, which has led us here, to Oddworld: Soulstorm.
My first thought when getting a demo of Soulstorm from Lanning was how gorgeous it looks. It’s clear that the Inhabitants have a background in film, because both the gameplay and especially the cinematics look like those of a game with four times the budget. Speaking of those cinematics, I saw the opening one, which picks up near the end of the story; Soulstorm will then walk you back to the beginning of the tale, and you’ll eventually catch up to where you started. This adventure will chronicle the legend of Abe and his follower are escaped slaves – fugitives on the run – fighting from the brink of extinction.