September 2010
First Stranger remaster dev diary
The first in a new series of developers’ diaries chronicling the remastering of Oddworld Stranger’s Wrath by Just Add Water has been published on the official JAW website. This entry introduces the changes that need to be made to the game, which will form the backbone of the series, and describes their choice of version control software. There is also an enlightening image comparing the Stranger model with different polygon counts.
Sources: JAW
Stranger’s Wrath remastered for the PlayStation 3
Just Add Water has announced their first project working with the Oddworld universe, a remastered digital release of Oddworld Stranger’s Wrath on the PlayStation 3 via the PlayStaion Network. While the game itself will remain exactly the same, it will be updated with higher display resolution, improved character models, remastered audio and support for PlayStation Move. Resolution will be upped from 640×480 to 720p, and character model polygon counts increased from the original Xbox’s 3 000 to 25 000. Dialogue, often criticized for being grainy and low-quality, is having its bitrate doubled from the original 11kHz to 22kHz.
Despite media reports that it will be PlayStation 3-exclusive, Lorne Lanning and JAW’s Managing Director Stewart Gilray have confirmed that an Xbox Live Arcade release has not been ruled out but can’t yet be confirmed because of technical and beaurocratic reasons.
Stranger’s Wrath was the choice of remaster over Munch’s Oddysee for several reasons, including its lack of middleware dependency and high ratings by critics. It is the first announced of five projects being worked on by JAW and is expected to be released—with French, German, Italian and Spanish subtitles—near Easter 2011.
JAW will be publishing a series of developer diaries about the remastering process, with the first part due today.
Sources: JAW official website