Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee (1997) — where the attack button should be, there is a talk button

How does a hero with no weapons get out of a factory full of guards?

Hello, this is Toki. Episode 59 of "Today Is Release Day". Today's game has no attack button. In its place sits a button for talking.

That is how the hero crosses a factory full of armed guards. Call out to your own people and move them. Possess your enemies and put their bodies to work. Those two things are the whole puzzle.From the thumbnail of "Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee (1997) - Official Trailer" (Retro Game Trailers, YouTube)

Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee is a puzzle platformer released by Oddworld Inhabitants in 1997. GT Interactive published it; the platform was the PlayStation. Abe, the hero, is a slave on the floor of a meat-packing plant.

A note about the date. The game reached North American shelves on September 18, 1997. The official launch event, "Odd Friday", was the next day, the 19th. GameSpot records the first release as September 18. So this game has two release dates. Today, September 18, 2026, is exactly 29 years from the shelf date.

What can Abe do, and what can he not do?

Start with what he cannot do. Abe cannot carry a gun. He cannot punch. He can throw meat, rocks and grenades, and the grenades blow up in his hand if he holds them too long.

If a guard sees him, he is shot. If he falls, he dies. In most places death is instant and takes a single hit.

The first thing he can do is GameSpeak. Hold a button, press a direction, and Abe makes a sound: hello, follow me, wait, plus a word of praise and a word of scolding. With those he moves his fellow Mudokons one at a time, puts them on switches, and walks them to the exit.

Lorne Lanning, the director, has said the system was partly inspired by the audio puzzles of Loom. Co-founder Sherry McKenna believed the cure to everything is communication. The attack button becoming a conversation button was not an accident.From the thumbnail of "PSX Longplay [010] Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee (Part 1 of 2)" (World-of-Longplays, YouTube)

The second thing he can do is possession. Chant, and Abe slips into a Slig guard. In that body he walks, speaks, shoots other enemies and operates the dangerous machinery. When he is done, he bursts the host from the inside. While he is possessing, Abe's own body stands there, defenceless.

Every step commits. You cannot steer a jump in mid-air. So you decide before you move: run, tiptoe, or roll underneath.

The factory holds 99 rescuable Mudokons. Get 50 or more out and the freed slaves call down lightning, destroy the factory and save Abe. Fall short and Abe goes into the meat grinder. You can finish the game having saved nobody. The ending changes anyway.

Having taken the weapons away, the game made "how do I put the enemy to work" the puzzle instead of "how do I kill the enemy". For a 1997 puzzle platformer, that was an unusual choice.

How was the game received right after release?

The praise was high but not unanimous. GameRankings put the PlayStation version at 88%, Metacritic at 85. Individually: Edge 8/10, Electronic Gaming Monthly 8.5/10, Game Informer 9.25/10, GameSpot 8.4/10, IGN 7.5/10.

GameSpot called it "the ideal platformer, balancing its action and puzzle elements perfectly to make the game intelligent, engaging, and, best yet, fun."

The criticism gathered at one point: trial and error. PC Zone wrote that progress "does seem to rely on trial and error", and that being dropped back at the start of a level was especially maddening. Next Generation put it more evenly: action players would find the pace slow, but the trade was a considerably more cerebral set of challenges, demanding observation, persistence and thought.

On the awards side, Electronic Gaming Monthly gave it Best Voice Acting and Best Sound of 1997. It was runner-up for Best Graphics. Final Fantasy VII took first.

The sales, for the record. 500,000 units shipped at launch. Over a million worldwide by late January 1998, with Europe unexpectedly outselling the United States. By December 2012 the total was 3.5 million.

The numbers behind the numbers survive too. The game cost $4 million to make. The marketing budget was $10 million — the largest GT Interactive had ever spent on a title.

What became of the game in the 29 years since?

From here, what happened afterwards.

Below is the trailer from the time. The darkness of the factory, Abe's stitched mouth, the silhouettes of the guards. This is the footage from the year they spent $10 million on advertising.

The Japanese version arrived about three months after North America, on December 11, 1997. It was renamed Abe a GoGo and published by Game Bank. The title changed completely, so some people surely played both without realising they were the same game.

Oddworld Inhabitants built this as the first of a planned five-part series, the Quintology. Oddworld: Abe's Exoddus followed in 1998, Oddworld: Munch's Oddysee in 2001, Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath in 2005. A full remake of this first game, Oddworld: New 'n' Tasty, was made later.

Let me write down the year: 1997

1997. If I do not write the year down like this, the article never feels finished to me. It reached North American shelves on September 18, 1997. Today, September 18, 2026, makes it exactly 29 years.

That same year, its rival for the prettiest screen was Final Fantasy VII. One a vast role-playing game, the other the story of a slave with no weapon.

What this game left behind is a finding: take every means of attack away, and the puzzle that appears is "how do I put the enemy to work". Swapping the button for killing with a button for talking was enough to change the shape of the solution.

Is there a game you have played where not fighting was the solution?