As an artist coming of age over the last couple decades, absorbing all the varied influences around me, I was drawn to the art that went into the making of films such as Star Wars, Aliens, and Jurassic Park. It only occurred to me when it came time to start a career that designing imaginary movie creatures and environments might really be the gig for me. Yet, how often do the truly exciting projects come along? Fate had that answer for me when I became aware of a very fledgling video-game company located in my own small hometown.
Over seven years ago I first walked the halls of Oddworld Inhabitants mere months before the release its first game Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee. Even without a finished game on the shelves, the vast Oddworld universe, plastered across every wall, was clearly designed far beyond any single storytelling experience. Almost instantly, I realized that I didn't want to focus on designing creatures or creating landscapes for solitary, one-off stories. I wanted to be part of what Oddworld was endeavoring to achieve through inventing a universe with bitter conflicts and intricate cultures. I wanted to become a world builder.
Now, many years and three game releases later, the scope (and burden) of the world-building responsibility has become a bit more clear to me. I've had the time to form a deep familiarity and intimate bond with the Oddworld Universe and its personalities. I've helped to form those personalities, and in turn, formed a part of me. Through the first three Oddworld games, we've come to create and know a huge cast of bizarre characters, focusing specifically on the hapless Abe and the persistent Munch. Both Abe and Munch were conceived and designed as embodiments of downtrodden innocence. Through the strength of their na¿ve purity they would prevail over the malicious gluttony of Oddworld's industrial powers-that-be. But revolution comes from more than just innocence.
When the time came to begin development on Oddworld Stranger's Wrath, Oddworld's fourth game experience, we considered the continuing adventures of Abe and Munch as they pursued their very important plight, but there were so many different points of view in Oddworld that were yet unexpressed. Down in the dark recesses of our imaginations, there was a hero that was not so passive or unassuming trying to get out. Perhaps this reflected our own motivations about the way we wanted to approach our next round of storytelling and gameplay. The desire to strike out on Oddworld's cultural landscape with action and brute force struck all the right chords in our collective hearts. An imposing, nameless figure of strength swaggered into the forefront of our inspirations and the character that would come to be known as the Stranger came to life.
