What comes next?

Hello again, it’s been a while! In this post I’d like to quickly recap where we currently stand and what tidbits of info we’ve received about the series’ future since Soulstorm’s release.

TL;DR: Not a whole lot on the Oddworld front. Maybe a non-Oddworld game soonTM.

Obviously, the series story-wise is not even close to being over. Soulstorm ends on a fairly big sequel hook, so it’d be reasonable to expect that its sequel is already around the corner. Yet, as of the writing of this article, this is still not the case.

Oddworld News or The Lack Of Thereof

The earliest “direct” confirmation we’ve had about OWI working on something was in July, 2022, when Bennie Terry III said the following:

Ashley Hackett: Is there anything going in the Oddworld studio? Like, are you guys creating the new instalment? Are you guys working on something new?

Bennie Terry III: Definitely working on something. Right, I’m nodding my head a lot, because there’s, you know, “yes”-es to a lot of that. I can’t speak to specifically what it is, what genre it is, what style of play, but what I can say is that there’s something really cool, that has a unique visual signature to it, that is Oddworld through and through, but builds from character first.

He also went on to mention, that the team is aware of the fact that it’s very tight-lipped right now and that “there’s going to be some more openness about things in the next coming months” and that they’d “try to build a more inclusive environment that allows [their] fans to have a voice.”

However, he also refused to go into details, citing the fact that old interviews with Lorne Lanning ended up being picked to pieces five years later which “bit him in the ass.”

Either way, despite the promise of transparency, no direct announcement has been made since, nor has the public been more involved. The closest thing we have to more info being shared are the various Poddcasts and the #AskLorne Tweets, which are part of a multi-week Q&A session with Lanning.

Since then I occasionally asked members of OWI in private messages, about whether they’re working on a new game. Obviously they couldn’t tell me anything, but both of them confirmed that the “team is very busy”, which at the very least implies that the company isn’t in a vegetative state like during the early 2000s after Stranger’s Wrath.

Scattered Brains

There is one more piece to the puzzle, that I haven’t mentioned until now. That is the company Scattered Brains, which Lorne Lanning is a member of. It was first introduced by its CEO in his LinkedIn profile’s description:

Leath Bing: Scattered Brains is a new game studio led by a team of highly-decorated, 30+ year industry veterans contributing to titles such as Oddworld, QQ Dance, Call of Duty Online, Unreal Tournament, Mortal Kombat, and more.

In addition to their decades of individual experience selling tens of millions of copies of beloved games, our team members have worked with each other directly for decades.

The game will incorporate Hollywood-level production values from award-wining animators in its core legacy of compelling visual storytelling, while also incorporating the free-to-play mechanics pioneered by our team at Tencent and digital assets (both in- and out-of-game) for monetization and reinforcement of our core gameplay loop.

It’s worth noting that in March, 2024 Bing modified his status on LinkedIn to mention that he became CEO of another company, called CloutcastAI, which is banking on generative AI. Yet, despite this his profile’s description remained the same, leaving it unclear whether he is still involved or not.

Circling back to Scattered Brains, the company is very secretive at the moment, with little online presence beyond appearing in company registries. Observant fans noticed, however, that it already has a few live trademarks, which allow us to speculate on the sort of games they’re planning.

First and foremost, to jumpscare all readers, the company was originally looking into making NFT projects as evidenced by their “NFTalent” and “NFTalent Agency” trademarks.

Interestingly, these trademarks were submitted after OWI publicly confirmed that they will not be creating Oddworld NFTS:

OWI_Dan: With the AI art, we thought it would be cool to tap into the current AI art trend and see what we could come up with to celebrate Halloween along with Abe, it was more a fun activation for our social channels. I understand your concerns and I’ll relay these back to the team.

Re: NFTs, yes aware of them and no we won’t be doing any.

Thankfully both of these trademarks are now expired and the company’s other (still active) trademarks excised all mentions of NFTs from their scope definition since. I figure someone realized they’re neither as lucrative as NFTbros wanted us to believe, nor exactly a good source of goodwill from people.

Speaking of these still active trademarks, there’s two—not counting the one for the name “Scattered Brains” itself. The former is “DEDEX”, which is currently in its earliest state of submission and is therefore likely either a canned or future project. The other, more interesting one is titled “Planet of the Pests”, which is at the time of writing marked “pending for opposition,” which is legalese for “object now or forever hold your peace,” i.e. the final period before a trademark can be activated fully.

Not only that, but in May, 2024, I noticed that Bennie Terry III was actually play-testing / working on a development build of the game, making it the closest we have to a physical confirmation of the existence of a new OWI-related game.

Similarly, Lanning went on record in March to mention the following:

Lorne Lanning: I wanna focus on new content, y’know? And then we started a new venture, we haven’t exposed yet. But, let’s say, I have a working multiplayer prototype. This is the most exciting thing I’ve ever built and we’re getting some of the reaction to that.

While he makes absolutely no mention of “Planet of the Pests,” he did mention in another comment, that his team switched from Unity to Unreal Engine. With this in mind, I don’t think it is a great stretch to assume he was talking about the same game.

DeepWell Digital Therapeutics

What’s this? A surprise challenger?

Indeed, beyond Scattered Brains, Lanning is involved in yet another company. Aside from sounding like a company straight out of Cruelty Squad, there’s at least more info about this venture, including an actually released game.

The company’s website describes it as the following:

DeepWell DTx: We make fun video games that deliver powerful mental health treatments that keep you coming back to play.

Their first game, Zengence, is a rhythm-shooter (think Beat Saber, except with guns), which you control with your breathing. The intent is that by focusing on and being mindful of your breathing, you can let go of stress and calm down.

How effective this is and how fun the game is are beyond the scope of this post as I’m not qualified to answer either of these questions, but it’s a neat concept either way.

Going back to Lanning, notably he isn’t anything as pivotal as “director” or “co-founder” when it comes to DeepWell. Rather, he is named as part of the so-called Collaborative Advisory Council:

Whether he was actively involved in the creation of Zengence is not known, however, considering that he hasn’t mentioned it in his social media, I’m inclined to lean towards that he wasn’t.

A Curious Tweet

The most recent project-related thing we had from Lanning was the following Tweet:

Lorne Lanning: As an artist, it’s essential to keep creating. Here are some early creature/character concepts I’ve recently worked on and wanted to share with you all.

The post also contained two pieces of concept art, leading some to believe we’re seeing art for a new project.

Yet, not too long afterwards, Lanning clarified that the pictures are not his, as they were drawn by Farzad Varahramyan and that they aren’t new, as they’re old Oddworld concept art. He did, however, also say that “new recent work is still incubating,” which might refer to PotP or another unknown project.

He doubled down later in another post with the following:

Lorne Lanning: I want to emphasize that while I’ve been a driving force, it’s truly been a team effort, with many talented people contributing to the IP in incredible ways. I don’t feel the age; I feel like I’m just getting started! Hopefully we will be able to share some new things soon!

Conclusion

And that’s pretty much where we stand right now:

• OWI seems to be still kicking and constantly busy, but we have no idea with what,
• Scattered Brains seem to be working diligently on Planet of the Pests, though what sort of game it is, beyond that it runs on Unreal Engine and that it is likely multiplayer we do not know,
• and finally DeepWell seems to be doing its own thing, but it seems like the company hasn’t got that much to do with Lanning or OWI.

Thanks for reading!