Oddworld: Soulstorm (PlayStation 5) Review

Having defeated Mullock the Glukkon and liberated the Mudokon workers from Rupture Farms in Abe's Oddysee, Abe and his fellow Mudokons are chilling in their new home. Even from the opening scenes, it's clear that they are addicted to the drink SoulStorm. Abe is receiving advice from a masked mudokon when suddenly some of the drink catches fire causing an explosive wave of fiery destruction across this sanctuary. Here the player takes control of Abe as he escapes the collapsing caves helping others escape. This story is weaving and interesting with tons of excellent character interactions and killer direction. Each cut-scene is like a sublime meal for the eyes and an excellent reward for progressing through the adventure.

First things first, this looks gorgeous. The new cut-scenes are bombastic, extremely well-animated, and incredibly stylish. They frame the story in a completely new light, completely morphing the original Abe's Exoddus into something totally different. Firstly, Abe and his followers have been seriously redesigned. Now each important mudokan has a unique look, voice and mannerism, as well as different colours and outfits. This helps emphasise the characters in the story and makes them recognisable at a glance. Abe himself is a lot more expressive with much larger eyes and his iconic ponytail is now revealed to be feathers.

Environment design is excellent too, with many sweeping vistas, lots of cool foreground and background elements all working in tandem to bring Oddworld to life. A great example of this is seen in the first outside sections of the game, here Mullock (yup, he's still alive!) has an airship he's using to hunt Abe and get revenge for Rupture Farms. This airship flies past multiple times as Abe explores, it's genuinely intimidating and really emphasises the feeling of helplessness. This depth also affects later levels with things such as using Abe's chanting to use a Slig to defend Mudokons who are climbing to freedom in the background. It's exhilarating and the levels have many of these moments that really keep the experience fresh.

The level designs themselves are great with each checkpoint bookending a section of puzzle-solving or action. Here players need to make use of Abe's moveset to circumvent enemies, save Mudokons, or complete a novel challenge - or of course all three! Abe's moveset has seen a massive overhaul this time. The double jump is standard meaning there is an emphasis on clearing larger gaps or climbing higher and he can throw a variety of tools. These tools range from bottles of Soulstorm brew which are explosively flammable, bottles of water for extinguishing fires, rocks which can blow up mines or damage Sligs, and finally stun mines which can be used to trap Sligs without killing them or Abe if things go awry. These tools add a whole new element to the puzzles by including some environmental ways of dealing with enemies and traps that were not in the previous game.

Here the developers have also added a plethora of extras and ranking systems to make the morality system more balanced, after all saving all the Mudokons is much harder when there are hundreds! These rankings involve collecting secrets, smashing objects, saving Mudokons and incapacitating Sligs (non-lethally). As players work towards these goals a running tally will pop-up on occasion and as milestones are reached the ranking will move from Null through to Platinum. These are great for completionists as they make each level into a much more exploratory experience.

Recently the developer updated the systems and released a new version. This tightens up the controls, tweaks visual elements, fixes bugs and increases the overall performance. Since this update went live it has massively improved this game's feel meaning now this is elevated as an experience. The physics feel a bit tighter, with aiming the throwable items and their interactions with the environments feeling great. It's a much tighter control feel than New 'n' Tasty had.