Originally released on PC, PS4 and Xbox One back in 2021, publisher Microids and developer Oddworld Inhabitants announced a Nintendo Switch release earlier this year. Alongside announcing the Nintendo Switch release, the two companies also unveiled Limited and Collector’s Editions for the games.

The Limited Edition for Oddworld: Soulstorm on Nintendo Switch includes the game itself, a collectible metal case with 24 cartridge slots, and three art prints. The Collector’s Edition includes all of the Limited Edition stuff, along with a unique collector’s box, a 9-inch silver figurine of protagonist Abe, a 160-page artbook, a Mining Company keychain, Mudokon stickers, and Abe’s hand tattoo.

For more details about Oddworld: Soulstorm, check out our review.

A new trailer has been released to announce the game’s Switch release, which you can check out below. The game is supposedly “optimized for Nintendo Switch to take advantage of the platform’s unique features”, but there’s no concrete information on what that entails just yet, while a launch date for the Switch release hasn’t been mentioned either.

Microids has, however, unveiled Limited and Collector’s Editions for the game. The former will include a copy of the game itself, a collectible metal case with 24 cartridge slots, and three art prints. The Collector’s Edition, meanwhile, will include all of that, in addition to a unique collector’s box, a 9-inch silver figurine of protagonist Abe, a 160-page artbook, a Mining Company keychain, Mudokon Tribal stickers, and Abe’s hand tattoo.

Oddworld: Soulstorm is currently available on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, Xbox One, and PC (via Epic Games Store and Steam).

Oddworld: Soulstorm, it turns out, was one of those games. Speaking recently in an interview with YouTube channel Xbox Expansion Pass, Oddworld Inhabitants CEO and co-founder Lorne Lanning explained that as a result of circumstances beyond anyone’s control, Oddworld: Soulstorm being free on PlayStation Plus for a month after its launch turned out to be “devastating” for the studio.

Lanning stated that the developer entered into an agreement with Sony for financial reasons after struggling with “technical debt, legacy issues, and talent issues” during development, following which the plan was to launch the game by January 2021, at which point Oddworld Inhabitants didn’t expect the game to be downloaded by a large number of people, thus leaving plenty of scope for actual sales (and the resulting revenue) down the road. However, when COVID hit and brought about workplace restrictions, several things were impacted.

“We needed the money to complete the project and we thought we did a pretty good deal because we got this much money,” Lanning said (transcribed by Wccftech). “We thought in January there was no way we’ll sell more than this, the most we could sell is less than the money we could get, so we did the deal. Now through no fault of Sony’s COVID happened and this delayed us from January to April.

“The deal was still for one free month. What we thought was that we might maybe sell 50K units at launch or maybe a hundred thousand; it was pretty small numbers because it wasn’t going to be a lot of PS5s and lockdown looked like it was going to affect the number of machines manufactured as well, so there would be shortages at retail which for our deal would be kind of a good thing.

“Then there wouldn’t be as many game machines out there to get the free game, but because it slipped to April, we had the highest downloaded game on PlayStation 5 with Oddworld: Soulstorm. It was approaching at the end of the day close to four million units or something like that for free because they were all subscribers. For us it was devastating and so that’s how kind of the economies work.”

Later on in 2021, Oddworld: Soulstorm Enhanced Edition also came out, and launched for Xbox Series X/S and Xbox One in addition to PS5, PS4, and PC as well. There’s no word yet on how (or if) the game’s launch on additional platforms affected its sales.

Stranger’s Wrath, one of their classic games in the series, will finally be making its debut into the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One consoles and getting the high definition treatment that it has previously received on other platforms.

For the uninitiated, Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath HD has been available for PC and Nintendo Switch users for quite a while, before which it was also available on PS3 and PS Vita- but never made its way to the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, which is going to change soon. It will be available on both platforms on February 11, and will be priced at $19.99.

Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath HD follows the journey of the bounty hunter called “Stranger” and uses a hybrid view that allows players to switch between first-person action and third-person exploration, set against a western backdrop with a sci-fi spin on it.

Oddworld: Soulstorm Enhanced Edition brings a ton of new gameplay improvements over the original, such as balance improvements and fixes to the game’s AI, which will be more responsive and intelligent. There’s also a brand new Challenge Mode for returning players. Those on Xbox will get a different package of levels (Vykker’s Labs) than those on the PC and PlayStation (Toby’s Escape). These new levels are supposed to be a throwback to the classic 2.5D Oddworld levels. Interested fans can pre-order the game right now.

Of course, those who have the original purchased on either PlayStation or PC will get the Enhanced Edition upgrade for free. Oddworld: Soulstorm was previously, of course, a console exclusive for PlayStation, and while there are some obvious flaws within the game, it’s great that more people will now be able to experience it.

Oddworld: Soulstorm released in April this year for PC via Epic Games Store and PS4 and PS5. The game was also a part of the PS Plus lineup of games during its launch month, and is launching on Xbox One, Xbox Series X, and Xbox Series S at a later date. Other details on the matter remain scant for now, and fans are clamoring to know whether the game will be a part of Xbox Game Pass at launch – or not.

This announcement is by no means a surprise, since Oddworld‘s exclusivity was of course, timed. An ESRB rating for the game on Xbox platforms suggested something along these lines some time ago.

pic.twitter.com/gwXYpsh5S7

— Oddworld (@OddworldInc) August 18, 2021

Now, as spotted by Pure Xbox, Greek retailer The Console Club has listed Oddworld: Soulstorm for Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S. The listing mentions a release date of July 6. Though it’s certainly possible that the details on the release date might not be entirely accurate, given the context of previous reports, it seems an Xbox release for the platformer might well be around the corner.

Currently, Oddworld: Soulstorm is available for PS5, PS4, and PC. In our review of the game, we called it “the best and most welcoming game in the series, not to mention the best rounded out one.” You can read our full review through here.

Oddworld: Soulstorm has been handed an age rating for the Xbox Series X/S and Xbox One by the ESRB. This follows just days after the game was rated for the Xbox One in Brazil. An official announcement for the platformer coming to Xbox hasn’t been made, of course, but age ratings are often a precursor to those, so we might not have to wait too long before it’s made official.

Oddworld: Soulstorm is currently available on PS5, PS4, and PC. You can read our review of the game through here.

That might be about to change soon. As spotted by Xbox Era, Oddworld: Soulstorm recently received an age rating in Brazil for the Xbox One. An Xbox version of the game hasn’t been officially announced yet, but age ratings are often indicators of upcoming reveals, so maybe one is coming soon. Of course, one has to wonder whether an Xbox Series X/S version will be announced as well- it looks like a pretty safe bet.

Oddworld: Soulstorm is launching for PS5, PS4, and PC. You can read our review of the game through here.

It should be overwhelming and bloated, but Soulstorm is a masterwork of streamlining and slowly eking out various options and abilities to player one at a time, so that you get every chance to properly get used to the newest addition to your arsenal before you’re challenged to use it in unending permutations with everything else you already knew you could do by some deviously challenging, finely crafted scenarios. Speaking purely mechanically, Oddworld Soulstorm is almost shockingly well accomplished at pretty much everything it sets out to do.

There are some stumbles. Some of these are intended – such as the sheer stupidity of the Mudokons you are tasked with rescuing, managing whose safety in their utter lack of self preservation instinct can be where a lot of the game’s challenge often comes from. Then there are those, on the other hand, that are decidedly unintended, such as in the crafting system, which is wholly unnecessary busywork that serves more to break the pace than anything, or the times the game actually has the audacity to tie your fortunes to the Mudokons. You can end up missing a perfect run on a level through no fault of your own because the Mudokons are very literally the dumbest beings to have ever occupied the annals of history (fictitious or otherwise), or you can be forced to often – shudder – rely on their assistance in combat and stealth scenarios, in which case, good luck.

"Soulstorm is a masterwork of streamlining and slowly eking out various options and abilities to player one at a time, so that you get every chance to properly get used to the newest addition to your arsenal before you’re challenged to use it in unending permutations with everything else you already knew you could do by some deviously challenging, finely crafted scenarios. Speaking purely mechanically, Oddworld Soulstorm is almost shockingly well accomplished at pretty much everything it sets out to do."

Those stumbles, as mentioned, are more infuriating than they should be because of just how well realized this game is otherwise. Frankly, I am impressed with the sheer mastery over mechanical design and prowess that Soulstorm exhibits on a consistent basis, and it’s that level of its mastery that allows it to get away with the crushing difficulty the series is known for – because no matter how many times you die, it never actually feels unfair. Repeated failures only feel like well earned penalties for your own impatience, or lack of understanding of all elements in a scenario, as well as how you can best leverage them, or just plain and simple misfires of execution.

Soulstorm ends up being one of those rare games where, even when you fail, you end up going right back into it, because just one more attempt and this time you’ll know how to get past that chokepoint with so many enemies blocking the way damn it. It’s the ideal of “die and try again” realized to its peak potential. Thanks to the SSD, load times between multiple attempts cease to be a factor, and you’re jumping right back into things with no friction whatsoever impeding you. The game’s extremely well designed checkpoint system, which liberally doles out saves after pretty much every encounter, also means that death doesn’t set you back at all. You just have to repeat that one encounter from the start, except this time you’re armed with the knowledge of what went wrong, and how to prevent it. Marvelous, really. It’s definitely one of my favorite uses of checkpointing in a game, because it works beautifully in tandem with most of the other systems and the player’s intrinsic progress to craft difficulty that actually feels fair.

Of course, the qualifier above means there are caveats here. For example, the game’s checkpointing doesn’t take into account any crafting or even item hotswapping, meaning you’re adding needless busywork in between attempts by making players repeat all that every single time. Oddworld Soulstorm’s menus aren’t bad, to be honest, but no menu in the history of menus has been so good as to justify that you spend as much time in it as Soulstorm can often demand from its players.

While that isn’t a small criticism (to be frank, it’s probably almost singularly responsible for my dislike of the crafting system), at the very least I can say that it never makes the game feel unfair. Mind numbingly tedious, yes, but unfair, no. Of course, things can be different when the game punishes you for how dumb the Mudokons can be, because at that point a lot of the things you are punished for are very literally not in your control. It can also be similarly frustrating when bugs or glitches end up ruining a lot of your progress (to Soulstorm‘s credit, it’s been patched to have a lot of its glitches addressed, because at launch, it was a fair bit of a mess).

"No matter how many times you die, it never actually feels unfair. Repeated failures only feel like well earned penalties for your own impatience, or lack of understanding of all elements in a scenario, as well as how you can best leverage them, or just plain and simple misfires of execution. Soulstorm ends up being one of those rare games where, even when you fail, you end up going right back into it, because just one more attempt and this time you’ll know how to get past that chokepoint with so many enemies blocking the way damn it."

This, again, rankles as much as it does because it’s all an unforced error – elsewhere, Soulstorm is very literally pristinely designed, and works with all its various elements coming together in a way that very few other games on the market can boast of. So that it then shoehorns the tedium of an unnecessary crafting system, or that it fails to account for said crafting system with its checkpointing system, or that it needlessly ties player progress to the Mudokons more acutely than it should, or that it simply isn’t as polished as it should be, hurts. Because when everything in this game is working, it is working like few other games manage.

One of the great things that can help players persevere even at the game’s worst, when the systems and bugs are working against you (which, to be fair, doesn’t actually happen too often) is the story and storytelling. Oddworld has an incredibly richly realized setting, and Soulstorm goes more into it than any game in the past has managed, with some distressingly macabre humor, some pretty unsubtle commentary on class warfare, environmentalism, and capitalism, and some charming characters, backed with some glorious voicework, that can make sticking with it worth it.

They also indirectly contribute to the frustration sometimes, because did you know, the game has multiple endings, and they are tied to how many of the Mudokons you manage to save. Yes, you can probably see where I’m going with this – that you’re challenged to save all the Mudokons to get the best ending means that you might get more invested in trying to save them than you otherwise would be, which makes those failures that much more infuriating. Thankfully, the good ending and the best ending aren’t too different, so you can get by with the more lenient requirements for the former than the latter, but yeesh.

"Oddworld has an incredibly richly realized setting, and Soulstorm goes more into it than any game in the past has managed, with some distressingly macabre humor, some pretty unsubtle commentary on class warfare, environmentalism, and capitalism, and some charming characters, backed with some glorious voicework, that can make sticking with it worth it."

The great world and story of the game is bolstered by the genuinely great presentation as well. As I’ve mentioned already, the voice acting is delightful, but the game also looks and sounds great. It’s not a next gen showpiece, but it looks good, backed up by some really strong art as well. The audio side of things is great too, though more on the voice work and effects side than on the music side (which isn’t to say the music is bad, it’s not, it just doesn’t stand out like so many other things in the game do).

Oddworld: Soulstorm ends up being a very good and very compelling game, that legitimately threatens to be an all time classic so often, you can’t help but be angry at it for not following through. That it stumbles where and when it does does not in the slightest take away from all that the game achieves, and just how well it achieves it, of course, and Soulstorm is without a doubt the best and most welcoming game in the series, not to mention the best rounded out one. And honestly, the fact that most of my frustrations from the game stem from it not managing to be utterly sublime all the time should, more than anything else, speak volumes about the quality of the core game, when it’s firing on all cylinders.

This game was reviewed on PlayStation 5.