To begin with, let me briefly remind you how it began and why players generally fell in love with this series. If you already know, you can skip this paragraph and move on to the next one.

● Oddworld Abe's Oddysee (1997)
It was a breakthrough game for its time and its genre. Yes, its concept was not new - the game mechanics were simply taken from the very first Prince of Persia of the 80s (the one in which no one even passed the first level) and improved it. The press met Abe positively, rating it 7-9 points and calling it the perfect platformer, because it successfully combined logic game, action and fun. By 2001, 2 million copies had been sold. Players fell in love with the game for its incredible, unlike anything else world, for the music, for the mechanics and communication system, for the animals, for the images of aliens, corporations, savages, shamanism.
There was only one drawback - insane difficulty. However, the game could be completed.

● Oddworld Abe's Exoddus (1998)
Sequel, which was quickly released on the wave of wild success, was made according to the classic formula: take everything that players liked in the original and multiply it by 3. Therefore, the artsy locations became much larger, there are three times as many mudokons, three times as many sligs, three times as much communication, three times more animals, mines, pickups, abilities, and as many as 5 sinister factories instead of one. At the same time, authors listened to feedback about difficulty and made the aequel SO accessible and massive that you had to run mostly through huge half-empty levels with lame enemies and docile animals under control, besides having a quicksave at hand. In terms of mechanics and visuals, the sequel was generally the same as the original, there were almost no qualitative changes, so the whole game was perceived not as a separate one, but as a huge dlc to the first part. In terms of the plot, almost nothing moved there - the hero went through a very similar path, again he saved someone, and again at the end there was still someone left to save. But it was still a beautifully intense game with an interesting plot, cut-scenes, it was entertaining and left an impression. It's scores were like the original ones.

● Oddworld: Munch's Oddysee (2001)
Authors tried to determine for whom they are doing all this, and for some reason decided - for young children. Therefore, the rather serious and cruel style of the original was thrown away and turned everything into a cartoon, chibic characters were added to the original world. In addition, the visual style of the originals, which conquered the heights of the visuals in 2d, was simply dropped off for the sake of the wretched cardboard 3d, which was just beginning to come into fashion at that time. In fact, they made a clone of Spyro the Dragon. Because of this, players who took this world seriously did not accept this game and do not consider it a real sequel. This is a children's fanfic that uses the original universe as a platform to promote some bullshift that no one asked for.

● Oddworld Stranger's Wrath (2005)
It has nothing to do with the original universe at all and just uses its name. Cartoon western with furries. In the context of this article, it is not worth any attention.

● Oddworld: New 'n' Tasty (2014)
A remake of the first game, carefully transferring the entire story, visuals and mechanics to a modern engine. Criticism is taken into account - there are 3 levels of difficulty and even the maximum is perfectly adequate. This is an exemplary remake that lovingly conveys everything you loved so much, and expands some moments of the original game without spoiling or changing anything. The only negative is that the sligs no longer look and sound as menacing as in the original, now they are perceived not as killer cyborgs with mechanical voices, but as a gang of stupid frogs, placed for beating. But overall, it's an almost perfect remake.

After that, the players waited for the sequel and wondered - will they do a strict remake of Exoddus or will there be a new alternative sequel? The second option seemed to look more tempting ...

This usually happens when publisher grabs all the rights to a project, kicks out the original developers and hires cheap outsiders to bury the franchise. But this time it's not the case, and the same authors did the sequel. Nevertheless, they managed to do the impossible - to bury absolutely every aspect that made the original a masterpiece.

● Strange world
The very basis of the game was that plot takes place not just on some other planet, but this planet is very non-standard and even surreal. All the images here are bizarre remixes of our reality, here all the images are deconstructed, as if broken and assembled in a different sequence. It seems to be corporations, savages, shamans, mantras, animals - but all this is not like on Earth, everything is different, unusual, causing bewilderment, charm, a sense of mystery. At each level, you've come across things you don't know. Bird portals, switchable jumping wells, grenade barrels, butcher saws, a wheel-shaped rail tank. There are no such things on Earth.
What's in Soulstorm? Ordinary mines, trolleys, lockers. Conventional science fiction mechanisms, robots. Ordinary bottles of water, tools, electrical tape. Throughout the game, you will not find almost a single location, not a single object that would look alien. Tape recorder with three rollers... Seriously? This world has ceased to be strange, it has become completely NORMAL.

● Conversations
In the original, the characters didn't talk much. The authors found a balance between a work in which the characters speak and a silent cartoon (the second has the advantage of visual immersion). In their compromise, they made it so that in the cut-scenes it is mostly the villains who talk, giving an exposition, and Abe himself retells the key moments of his story in a few poetic lines, as if he was telling it some time later, for example, around a campfire. This was creating an eerie and bewitching feeling.
In Soulstorm, the characters started to talk a lot, but they mostly talk bullshift that could be cut out entirely and the game wouldn't lose anything AT ALL. Run there to the mine, save that one, help that one, and the old woman was so old that it was scary to look... Why this chatter? You ruined the whole atmosphere. Stupid dialogues from all the cracks, you did not make the game better, you made it worse.

● Physics
Despite the incredible image of the world itself, physics in the original game were quite realistic and worked well in conjunction with acrobatics.
In Soulstorm - double jumps! Abe is jumping in the air! Got it? Physics is dead, the game has stopped pretending to be reality.

● Interface
An important part of the concept in the original was that there was no interface at all. It wasn't there during gameplay. Authors were able to make sure that the player received all the information from the environment: from terminals, from moths, from sounds, from placed objects.
Soulstorm - hello bottles collection! Hello crafting trash from other trash. Switching items in inventory. An indicator of health, energy... How did we live without this before?

● Meditation
In the original games, it looked powerful, bright, mysterious, ominous. The hero had power!
In Soulstorm it's just arcade mechanics. That's what Mario could do.

● Music
In the original, the music followed you. It was very diverse and accompanied everything that happened: you didn’t just move between levels, you lived the work in all its moods. The iron clang of a factory, lulling African motifs of ancient nature, sharp dangerous explosions of notes on the run from beasts. When you took control of a slig, the music instantly changed to his theme, making you feel like you've gone from prey to hunter - you now have a machine gun and you're scary. And the music of the slig has always been different, one at the factory, another at natural locations - and also in many versions. Music conveyed despair, fear, charm, beauty, mystery. This is one of the best soundtracks for games.
And in Soulstorm... did you even notice music? Seriously. When you played, did you hear the music? Remember anything? So, it turns out tracks exist there... But they are all similar. It's just the same type of disturbing ambient for any game. Absolutely random generic music that just fills the background. Authors, go and listen to what you had in the original game.

● Animals
Alien animals were an important part of the original games. Scrabs and paramites were sacred animals, getting into their lands for trials took up the middle of the game and did not let it sag. They gave a feeling of adrenaline danger, they were pretentious, frightening, unusual, beautiful in their own way. In Exoddus, it was possible to posses them, and in the case of Paramites, even communicate with your kind. There were slogs and fliches that had to be fought with improvised means.
There are no animals in Soulstorm. Totally. Authors simply cut out some of key content. They just forgot about it.

And now about how to destroy your own lore.

● Has it only been a day?
In the original Exoddus sequel, Abe received the opening prophecy right after the end of the first game, but it doesn't feel like he set off on a new journey at the same time. He made friends, a settlement was built, at least a few days were to pass there.
In Soulstorm, it suddenly appears that only ONE DAY has passed. This was done in order to start the story timer to create tension in a fairly cheap way. But such a rush, such a reduction in terms looks ridiculous for a sequel that came out after many YEARS. They don't usually do that, and years go by in later sequels to avoid creating dissonance with fans' personal time. But here the sense of elapsed time was replaced by 1 day. Downplay...

● Molluk is alive?
In the original, it was clearly shown that he was killed by lightning from collective meditation. He burned down and fell dead. His body was smoking. The omniscient shaman stood nearby and was sure that he was dead. Glukkons are not some very tenacious creatures to recover from this.
And now authors show us that he is not just alive - he was not even injured. He didn't get burned. Is it possible to assume that he was pumped out, treated and he managed to recover from burns? Let's look at his behavior - he talks like a villain who has already comprehended his defeat, who does not climb on the rampage and now reckon with his enemy. Experience made him wiser, right? Not right. Because it's been ONE DAY.
This scenario seemed to be written by different people: a day passed for the mudokons and let's say a year for Molluk.

● Where is Bigface?
Shaman Bigface was the second most important character in the original game. He took Abe through the whole story. He resurrected him and endowed him with power of Shrykul. He guided him along the way.
In Soulstorm, he simply does not exist, and this is not explained in any way. And at the beginning they shown us some shaman, but it was not him.

● Granny keeper?
When playing the first game, you might be wondering "Where are the girls?" It may seem strange, but the answer is that they do not exist. All shown mudokons are asexual creatures, drones. In this world, all intelligent races reproduce according to the scheme of social insects, i.e. mudokons, sligs and glukkons have their own queens. They were never shown in the games and can only be read about in the accompanying material, although there were a couple of references to the mudokon queen Sam in New n Tasty, for the most attentive players.
Moreover, a few years ago I read an article directly on the official website in which some abstract mudokon answered questions from fans, and he directly said that mudokons have no girls rather than the queen. In 2022 it was not possible to find that article.
In Soulstorm, we meet a shaman granny... This is how authors wiped themselves with their own lore.

Oddworld Soulstorm doesn't feel like a sequel to Abe's Odyssee or New 'n' Tasty at all. At best, it's just a product of its time, a faceless platformer. Same authors worked, but somehow they managed to kill every component that gave success to the original. They spit on their lore, they messed up the characters and piled on them with a bunch of empty unnecessary dialogue, they killed the physics and turned the innovative acrobatic logic game into an arcade game with double jumps, hood and garbage crafting. Instead of amazing immersive music, they gave us an empty ambient plug in the background. They betrayed the Odd World that fascinated us and replaced its wonders with generic scenery that fits any game. They made this world ORDINARY. This whole story could be not about aliens, but about any generic humans on Earth or, for example, gnomes or kobolds. This game is completely faceless. There was nothing left in it of what it was loved for.

I will end with advice for all creative people who write something. Don't make these kinds of mistakes. Always be original. Don't use ready-made ways, don't use clichés, don't plug holes with fillers, never settle for some simple solution. Because why do it for the hell of it when you can do it chic? Why do what others have done without you, if you can create? Try. Fight stereotypes, deconstruct. Create something new - and you will be noticed, you will be loved, your game or your novel will be remembered in decades and they will tell others this was good, not like any trash. Simply because the author tried and did not settle for anything but the best. This is the whole point of art - creation of the New.