Oddworld: Soulstorm's first gameplay video shows crafting, exploration

The latest Oddworld: Soulstorm teaser has what you've been after: Abe doing his thing, rescuing his pals and messing up factories. The previous trailer looked great, but this time we've got some in-game footage to stare at, too. It's still an eye-catching sidescroller with a lot of familiar touches, but it's a lot more than a remake of Abe's Exoddus.

Abe's been kicked into the modern world and forced to craft, as all videogame protagonists must. Thankfully, it doesn't sound like we'll be squashing together wood and iron to create an axe so we can chop down more trees. The crafting systems sounds like it has more in common with adventure games, where you're experimenting and sticking components together to create MacGuyver-like doohickeys. And to collect ingredients, you just need to pickpocket sleeping or dead guards.

Wes got to see the crafting and more in action recently, so give his Oddworld: Soulstorm impressions a read. It sounds promising, and gosh is it a looker. '2.9D' is what Lorne Lanning calls it, which is silly, but 2.5D also sounds too reductive.

"The factory level he showed me was sprawling, with layers of activity visible in the distance, playing in real time," Wes said in his preview. "I could see guards and mudokons walking around back there, and much of the level was off the critical path and entirely optional. Finding out how to access those areas will take a lot of exploration, which should make all the levels feel more like real, complex spaces and less like environments you simply traverse left-to-right. "

Oddworld: Soulstorm is due out early next year.

Fraser is the UK online editor and has actually met The Internet in person. With over a decade of experience, he's been around the block a few times, serving as a freelancer, news editor and prolific reviewer. Strategy games have been a 30-year-long obsession, from tiny RTSs to sprawling political sims, and he never turns down the chance to rave about Total War or Crusader Kings. He's also been known to set up shop in the latest MMO and likes to wind down with an endlessly deep, systemic RPG. These days, when he's not editing, he can usually be found writing features that are 1,000 words too long or talking about his dog.