Beyond a Steel Sky dev says he doesn't consider the game a sequel

Beneath a Steel Sky came out quite a long time ago, and now the game's universe is expanding with Beyond a Steel Sky. Should new players need to go back and play the original to understand what's going on? According to Revolution Software CEO Charles Cecil, Beyond a Steel Sky shouldn't even be considered a sequel.

"Okay, so I don't even want to call this a sequel, because I'm going to assume that nobody who plays this game has ever played Beneath a Steel Sky. This is within the same universe, but the gameplay is so completely different. The original was a 320x200 point-and-click - this is much more ambitious. This is a full 3D world, but very much based on the idea of core adventure puzzles built on top of pillars. What we want is games that are ultimately logical, which means that the player should be able to work them out."