Oddworld: New 'n' Tasty!

Lore & Background

Oddworld: New 'n' Tasty! was first announced by Lorne Lanning and known during development as Abe HD and Abe's Oddysee HD. Work began after Just Add Water extended development time for Stranger's Wrath HD on the PS3. The developers were given full access to the original's source code, design concepts, maps, and tools. The game was built from scratch using the original designs as a blueprint but none of the original's final assets. In June 2012, Oddworld Inhabitants announced it would not be a remaster but a remake built from scratch with 2D gameplay and 3D graphics. The first footage was released at Eurogamer Expo on September 30, 2012, revealing 2.5D presentation and continuous scrolling. In December 2012, the development team ceased production on their current engine and began again on the Unity engine, taking three months to reach the previous stage and eight months to rebuild the entire game.

Reader's Guide

Oddworld: New 'n' Tasty! is notable as a comprehensive remake of the classic Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee, updating the original's flip-screen gameplay to continuous scrolling in a 2.5D graphical style. The game features an enhanced GameSpeak system with more dialogue and responses, and increases the number of Mudokon slaves to rescue from 99 to 299. It introduces difficulty settings that affect Abe's health and enemy reaction times, with a "Hard" mode replicating the original game's difficulty. The remake includes random generators for enemy movement patterns, leaderboards for speedrunning, and a checkpoint save system with increased frequency. The game's budget was $5 million, and it was released across multiple platforms including PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and mobile devices. A sequel, Oddworld: Soulstorm, was released in April 2021.

Did You Know?

• The game uses the Unity engine after the development team restarted production in December 2012.
• A Nintendo Switch version was released on 27 October 2020.