Eurogamer

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.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-04-29-abe-hd-decision-due-in-the-summer

Ah, what a weird game/s, I'll try it out though.

Fond memories ...

More info:

Oddworld: Munch's Oddysee HD announced

Just Add Water has delayed the PlayStation 3 launch of Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath HD to the summer.

It had been intended for launch this week.

However, JAW has announced a HD remake of Munch's Oddysee, due for release on PS3 in October alongside a PlayStation 3 Oddboxx promotion containing all four Oddworld games.

JAW delayed the launch of Stranger's Wrath HD, originally released on Xbox in 2005, because of the late finish of the PC version and the addition of new features.

"Stranger's coming out this summer," JAW boss Stewart Gilray told Eurogamer tonight at the GameCityNights event in Nottingham. "We thought, why don't we just make up the set and do Munch HD as well?"

Oddworld: Munch's Oddysee was the third game made by Lorne Lanning and Oddworld Inhabitants. It was released exclusively on the Xbox as a launch title in 2001 in the US and 2002 in the UK.

JAW is currently in talks with Microsoft about the launch of Xbox 360 versions of both games. "There is hope," Gilray said.

"There are various things with Microsoft," he revealed. "We originally faced this 2GB limit. They said to be on XBLA you have to be smaller than 2GB. But, Games on Demand, any size you want. Not sure how that works, but that's what they've told us. So they originally knocked us back for XBLA for Stranger HD, not just in size. They actually turned the project down."

Why?

"I'd rather not say why. We're talking to them now and we're making progress with them on that. They've been more forthcoming recently than they were in December last year. That's perhaps because when I told Lorne at Oddworld that Microsoft said no, they went, 'They said what!?' And they called up their friends at Microsoft and said, 'What!?' Lorne is Lorne. He's a bit of a formidable force in some respects.

"We've got various avenues open to us."

If Stranger's Wrath HD does release on Xbox 360, "it'll be about a month after" the PlayStation 3 release, Gilray said.

"Ultimately we want to do on Xbox what we're doing on PS3, and that is to be self-publishing. We don't want to have to go via another party, be it Microsoft Game Studios or another publisher. Right now, the way Microsoft works is you can't publish on Xbox 360 digitally unless you've published three disc products before – unless you're via MGS, like Trials HD did."

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-04-29-oddworld-munchs-oddysee-hd-announced

Cool news.

Thanks Insanity :P