Fans of Oddworld have a lot to be excited about this year as Oddworld Soulstorm is set to be released sometime in the second half of 2017. This game is a sequel to 2014’s Oddworld New ‘n’ Tasty, which was a remake of the original 1997 classic “Abe’s Oddysee”. Whether this game will be a remake of Abe’s Exoddus is still in question, however, the creators have been running an interesting alternate reality game (ARG) with the community.

Oddworld Soulstorm was marked with mysterious messages from “Spirit of 1029”, a Mudokon-sympathizing group that has been leaving a breadcrumb trail of information for the community to follow. Distorted photos and sound bytes are among some of the things being discussed with great intrigue on Soulstorm’s Reddit feed. A Mudokon named Ed  – who appeared trapped, alone, and afraid, made an appearance on Twitter with a panicked message that revealed his race was under a new threat! The Oddworld site had this to say:

“After an extensive effort by the Oddworld community, most of those messages were deciphered and we were led to a web page that contained eight torn up and burned fragments of a photograph that appeared to depict something as terrible and terrifying as the audio clip suggested. After a few days of tireless work from our community and our team at Oddworld Inhabitants, we managed to get a clean version of this image. The clearer the image became, the harder it became to look at until we were eventually left with the image above.

Whatever might be happening to the Mudokons, a few things are clear. They are not happy. They are not safe. They are oppressed. Now, Spirit of 1029 has made contact again and they’re saying that there’s more evidence of these atrocities yet to see. We need your help to find the truth. We can’t do it alone. We will encourage people to take a stand, we will spread the message and refuse to sit in silence. We will save the Mudokons.”

The Oddworld Soulstorm website itself is a call to action for the community to continue the ARG. With four more photos left to unlock there is still a lot of work to be done before the release of the game. While it’s obvious that this is mean to hype fans up leading to the release of the game, it is a fun and interesting way to get gamers involved and invested in the new title!

What do you think of the Oddworld Soulstorm ARG? Are you going to get involved in unlocking the last four images? Sound off in the comments below!