Abe HD decision due in the summer

By Wesley Yin-Poole Published 29 April, 2011

Could be Oddysee, Exoddus, or brand new.

Just Add Water is yet to decide which Abe game to remake in high definition.

The choice is between Abe's Oddysee and Abe's Exoddus – both iconic PSOne platforming games.

But an outside bet is that JAW will create an entirely new Abe game.

Oddworld creator Lorne Lanning announced in January that Abe's Oddysee was set for a HD remake with JAW at the helm.

But a decision is yet to be made, JAW boss Stewart Gilray told Eurogamer at the GameCityNights event in Nottingham.

"We want to do something, at least Oddysee or Exoddus-based because we have the design for those games," he said. "We have all the original 3D models for those games. We've got all the models behind what was pre-rendered. All the animations. All the environment models.

"What we're coming up with, people are going to like. But we're still in pre-production. We haven't decided if we're going to go with a full Oddysee remake or if we'll take parts of Oddysee, parts of Exoddus and parts of new stuff. We'll see."

All that is decided at this stage is that JAW will create an Abe HD game, it will be 2.5D, and it will launch for PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

A decision will be made in the summer, with production due to begin in August.

"If we do a brand new game it's going to be two years away. If we do a remake it's going to be a year away," Gilray revealed. If it is a remake JAW hopes it'll launch by next Christmas.

"If we do a remake we could use it as a test bed. It's all well and good the fans saying, we want another Abe game. But, will only the fans buy it, or will we introduce new fans to it? The reason for doing Oddysee is that we can appeal to kids who weren't playing games 13, 14 years ago when it first came out and introduce Oddworld to a new audience that way.

"The businessmen say that's the sensible way to go. The creative says, no! Let's do new!"

1997 platformer Abe's Oddysee introduced playable character Abe, a Mudokon slave working at the RuptureFarms meat processing factory on Oddworld. Abe's Exoddus followed in 1998, again on the PSOne. Both games enjoyed such critical and commercial success that Abe became something of a PlayStation mascot.

Picture of Wesley.

About Wesley Yin-Poole

Wesley is Eurogamer's news editor. He likes news, interviews, and more news. He also likes Street Fighter more than anyone can get him to shut up about it.

Read more articles from Wesley by visiting the Wesley Yin-Poole archive page.

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Comments (23) Latest comment 1 year ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • MojoDex #1 1 year ago

    how about both then package them together? then when that sells a boat load when all the old folk buy it, you can make another :)

  • sybixsus #2 1 year ago

    I'd buy that! ^

  • Spence1115 #3 1 year ago

    The fan says HD remake please!

    The cow says moo.

  • kinth #4 1 year ago

    HD remake, not a fan of the 3d games, they are good but they dont age well at all.

    hmmm oddysee or exodus, if you go with exodus you would be alienating newcomers, so go with oddysee and then hopefully exodus then really hopefully a new 2d sequel written by lanning and the original oddword guys.

  • BBIAJ #5 1 year ago

    How about starting at the beginning?

    Common sense really...

  • suhawk75 #6 1 year ago

    3 stories from one press release/ interview.

    Quiet week for gaming? Oh hang on

  • nasanu #7 1 year ago

    How many pointless news articles are you going to spin this tiny bit of news into? It is pathetic.

  • bad09 #8 1 year ago

    HD remake of both, make loads of money then make a new one. Simples.

  • MdaG #9 1 year ago

    Do the psOne games hold up today? Thinking of getting the originals from PSN when it is back up.

  • Daddy-Doom-Bar #10 1 year ago

    @MdaG - Probably be quicker to wait for this remake, won't it?

  • Spong #11 1 year ago

    ^LOL

    HD remake x 2 please. After that, don't care. Oddysee & Exoddus is all that matters.
    Edited by Spong at 29/04/11 @ 08:47

  • SG #12 1 year ago

    Exoddus was a far greater adventure so that goes without saying, but why not both? In which case Oddysee makes more sense as the first game to get the treatment first. The engines are incredibly similar.

    A new adventure of the same ilk with HD graphics would be the best use of their resources though - can't you download the old titles (which still look awesome) anyway?
    Edited by SG at 29/04/11 @ 09:25

  • higgins78 #13 1 year ago

    I'm loving this modern idea of charging old games back to us at inflated prices. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial on the Atari 2600 would be my next game in line for an HD "makeover", hopefully sold at a very reasonable £40 for the privilege.

  • FenderMaster #14 1 year ago

    Didn't own a PS1 back in the day, but would love to give them a try, I really should when PSN is back online...

    New HD title wouldbe good, providing the budget isn't stupidly high and they release at a good time, I'm sure they could do quite well

  • joelstinton #15 1 year ago

    Abe...it be great to have you back! How would they go about re-making the game? Surely the models etc are outdated and can't really be upscaled? Saying that with all the stuff there it shouldn't take that long to redraw- animate the whole thing, make it again from the ground up. Because its a perfect game, for the HD treatment.

  • ZeroAX #16 1 year ago

    And the gamer says that such great games deserve to be experienced by a new generation. Just because the Godfather is a 40 year old movie, it doesn't mean that releasing it on new media, so the people of today can enjoy it isn't the "creatively" right thing to do.

    Works of art deserve to be remembered fur centuries.

  • bad09 #17 1 year ago

    @higgins78

    To be honest it beats paying for most of the modern drivel that is shovelled out from this industry. I'd give my money to a cleaned up, remade classic over most of the crap released nowadays any day of the week.

  • TruWari3r #18 1 year ago

    you had me at "Hello"

  • HermitArcader #19 1 year ago

    Post deleted at 09:17:39 22-12-2011

  • dahsif #20 1 year ago

    I played Odyssey a few months ago, and was surprised at how fantastic it still looked.
    Often when tou replay some old favourites, well..you know. But Odyssey still looked stellar and more importantly still: it's originality really feels like a breath of fresh air.



  • Mister-Wario #21 1 year ago

    I like Abe's Oddysee a lot (I played Exoddus' demo but I'm trying to finish the first one for reasons of order) but good grief is it difficult. Also, for some reason it creates a new save each time instead of overwriting the original. Which I suppose could be beneficial if you're really awkward about killing the other mudokons.

  • KennyD1221 #22 1 year ago

    No Elum = No Sale.
    Odyssey is where it's at.

  • gareth886 #23 1 year ago

    Wish they would just hurry up and make a decision already. If they are taking this long just to decide on which one to remake, I hate to think how long it will actually take them to make the actual game.

    I just want more Abe, old or new suits me fine.