When I first saw Outcast – A New Beginning, I was somewhat excited to give it a look because it reminded me of that fun and awkward era of gaming, somewhere in the late 2000s where every game was attempting some form of open-world third-person action game—with RPG elements. From Fable to Fallout 3, Red Dead Redemption and even Brütal Legend it seemed like everyone was trying to get in on the action—for better or worse.
Little did I know that Outcast was actually one of the first 3D open-world adventure games. With such a pedigree behind it, I was excited to dive into this blast from the not-so-distant past. And while it’s certainly not a terrible game, I think a lot of its old-school sensibilities really held me back from liking it as much as I would have—alas, we grow…we evolve…
Taking place sometime after the events of the original Outcast, Cutter Slade—and I was immediately on board with a character named Cutter Slade—finds himself back on the planet between dimensions known as Adelpha with no memory. However, he is immediately approached by the planet’s inhabitants—a Talan warrior named Lehaz—who claims he is an invader. Cutter tries to assure her he’s not and proves it by attempting to rescue her captured comrade.
Upon doing so, Cutter not only learns that humans are now trying to invade Adelpha and killing the Talanis, but is himself killed only resurrected, earning him the status of Ulukaï, the Talan Savior. Cutter must now fight to fend off the invading forces and unite the people of Adelpha once again.
It’s a fairly standard plot—the chosen hero destined to unite the realms, fight off the evil invaders, etc—but what really enamoured me was just how earnest it was in its craziness. This game throws a lot of crazy words and concepts at you and if you’re unfamiliar with the previous Outcast, then a lot of it is probably going to sound like sci-fi fantasy gobbledygook. But it’s presented in such an honest way that you really find yourself slowly ingratiating into this world alongside Cutter who is equally confused about the place he finds himself in. It would have been very easy to streamline these ideas for a more digestible story, but I’m really glad they don’t.
“For me, where Outcast – A New Beginning really shines is in its audio.”
It’s the gameplay that I find myself somewhat at odds with, however. While it’s not particularly bad by any means, I couldn’t help but feel like it didn’t do enough to really hook me. In a lot of ways, it reminds me of Red Faction Guerilla—there’s a similar kind of vibe with its mixture of exploration, combat and RPG elements. However, it all feels somewhat restrained and lacks the same kind of “wow factor” that other examples in the genre have utilized.
Getting quests is a fairly bog-standard affair: talk to locals, go to locations marked on your map, there may be robots to kill or bases to infiltrate. Part of the problem, at least for me, is with just how much questing and dialogue are in this game, it kind of makes the whole thing kind of boring. Not to mention so many of the quests involve going to the same bases, and killing the same robots—wash, rinse, repeat.
Maybe I’ve just grown beyond this to some degree, but unlike open-world RPGs, there’s not really a lot to explore and find in the world naturally, so the game kind of thrives on following the story and taking on quests. As such it’s constantly pausing and making you sit through long dialogue sequences, which I only didn’t mind for the aforementioned earnestness of its worldbuilding.
Exploring Outcast – A New Beginning‘s world isn’t all that much fun either. While it’s an incredible world with a plethora of diverse landscapes and architecture, it takes a while before you get any substantive movement options—I should have mentioned Cutter gets a jetpack at the start of the game, but in order to fly around to any degree of fun you gotta do some serious ability unlocking. Granted, once you do unlock boosting and gliding it can be incredibly fun to fly around the world, but you spend so much more time running around that by the time I unlocked cool stuff I had kind of mentally checked out.
The same goes for the combat. It’s a fairly straightforward third-person shooter that never really feels as satisfying as it should. While there is a unique layer of depth to it since you only ever get one weapon and you can apply modules and upgrades to it, as well as unlock combat abilities for Cutter, it just feels a bit like a holdover from the weaker elements of late 2000s third-person shooters.
“…if Outcast – A New Beginning has anything going for it, it’s definitely the visuals…”
Furthermore, I don’t know if it’s just something I’ve noticed with a lot of recent shooters—both first and third person—but aiming in Outcast – A New Beginning feels somewhat awkward and stiff. It kind of seems like every control scheme—including this one—needs to add acceleration to looking and trying to make precision movements and just feels off. Whatever happened to just pointing the stick, and having the cursor go where you point?
I will say, if Outcast – A New Beginning has anything going for it, it’s definitely the visuals, but even this isn’t without some caveats. As I mentioned above, the world of Adelpha is beautifully crafted looking like the world of Pandora but with a lot more charm. The level of detail in the design of twisting trees, rolling hills, and towering cliffs is incredible—made more impressive by a copious amount of multicoloured foliage. The one area where the game could have used a bit more work was the designs of the Talan themselves which aren’t overly impressive and often kind of featureless and janky.
However, where the caveat lies is in the game’s “performance” and “graphics” mode. Simply put, this game shouldn’t be played in performance mode. While it mostly runs at 60fps, there is a noticeable amount of screen tearing that really detracts from the experience. Graphics mode will drop the game to 30fps, but it at least, apparently turns V-Sync on, so that’s something?
For me, where Outcast – A New Beginning really shines is in its audio. Not its music that is kind of forgettable and tonally dissonant with most of the game—sometimes you’ll get these whimsical, flighty orchestral scores over moments that are meant to be incredibly serious and the mixing can be really off at times. No, what really makes this game bearable is the sheer COMMITMENT the voice actors had to their performances.
Every actor is giving 110 percent in this game and making even the most ridiculous of dialogue sound completely honest and believable. From Cutter Slade—who sounds a lot like George Clooney—and his goofy reactions to all the alien weirdness, but also a sincere openness to learning and adapting; to every actor playing every Talan delivering every line with complete sincerity. They all breathe so much life into the world and game that it’s hard not to be captivated by it. As I alluded to above, it was the only thing that made the somewhat boring questing remotely bearable.
I really wanted to like Outcast – A New Beginning, but it just never really got me. It might be because I’ve grown and my tastes have changed, or it might be because the market was flooded with so many open-world adventure games with RPG elements that you really need something unique to stand out—and this game really doesn’t have it. Like I said, it’s definitely not a bad game, and fans of the original Outcast are sure to enjoy it, but if you’re looking for a unique open-world adventure game, there’s definitely better there.
