Outcast: A New Starting is basically the sequel to a sport you seemingly have by no means performed from 25 years in the past. That mentioned, this new Outcast is actually value your time, even when it’s a bit tough across the edges.
The unique Outcast got here out in 1999 and was forward of its time within the technological division. The unique used an early model of Voxel know-how to construct out its open world, alongside the standard blocky 3D characters that had been applicable for the time. And but, the sport had early implementations of lip-syncing and emotive faces with a powerful quantity of voice performing.
That very same degree of ambition appears to have stayed with the sport sequence and may be felt in A New Starting. In each video games, you play as Cutter Slade. Sure, I do know, the identify screams 90s motion hero. Now, I used to be apprehensive that the tough edges that his 90s counterpart had would even be current on this new sequel. I imagined a brash Duke Nukem, however what I obtained was a way more reserved, considerate, and even variety dude with a pleasingly dry wit.
It was refreshing to see an ex-Navy SEAL interact with an alien race and deal with them as in the event that they had been human. It was a degree of respect that I didn’t count on and that was actually cool. Earlier than I proceed, it’s essential to notice that you simply don’t have to play the primary sport to totally get pleasure from this sport. Outcast: A New Starting does an ideal job of introducing you to the alien world of Adelpha and all of its colourful inhabitants.
These aliens stay in villages on this lush inexperienced planet with their very own distinctive and generally conflicting cultures. Each certainly one of them is absolutely voice-acted and has a lot of attention-grabbing issues to say, which exhibits how good the sport’s writing is. What’s actually neat relating to the dialogue system is that Outcast includes a dynamic glossary that updates in real-time, relying on the alien phrases utilized in each dialog. The alien folks of Adelpha continually use alien phrases, so having a dynamic reference like that readily available always is unbelievable.
As Cutter Slade, you’ll be exploring the massive and lovely continent with a number of villages and cities, on high of many extra factors of curiosity. At first, you’ll begin off with a easy vertical boosting jetpack, however because the hours fly by, your exploration skills tremendously develop. By 20 hours in, I used to be leaping off cliffs to glide over huge swaths of land, utilizing my reserve enhance to propel myself by way of the air after which transition to boosting on the bottom at extremely quick speeds.
![Cutter Slade Flying in Outcast a new beginning](https://twinfinite.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Outcast-a-new-beginning-review-4.jpg?resize=640%2C360)
That alone felt nice when the world that Outcast places you in is so extensive and extremely tall. Like, if the subsequent Elder Scrolls title has half of this sport’s geographical scope, I’ll be ecstatic. Mountains really felt like mountains and that’s so splendidly refreshing. Nonetheless, whereas the world itself is suitably giant and appears nice, the empty areas between factors of curiosity have little to have interaction with past enemy animal spawns and sources to gather.
Fortunately, the factors of curiosity are extra attention-grabbing than the areas that separate them. You’ll be destroying giant industrial bases, raiding small outposts, and doing a wide range of agility-based challenges. Doing these will reward you with forex that you need to use to spice up your weapon’s capabilities, jetpack’s capabilities, and even well being. The truth is, each giant inexperienced chest you open can reward you with weapon modules that you would be able to combine and match in your two weapons—a pistol and a rifle.
Mixing these wildly completely different modules basically adjustments your weapons into different weapons. I used a therapeutic, sniper, and first shot module on my pistol to show it right into a sniper rifle that does additional injury each time it shoots and regains HP each time I kill an enemy. Likewise, my rifle had speedy hearth, additional injury, and would depart an AOE sticky bomb with each shot. The system is extremely versatile and enjoyable to experiment with. However what are enjoyable weapons and a cool world with out goal and story?
Effectively, with out going into spoilers, Cutter Slade finds himself on Adelpha towards his will and is chosen early on to convey the area’s many villages collectively. That is all whereas repelling his fellow human invaders from ruining the lives of natives by stealing the planet’s pure sources for their very own egocentric acquire. That’s all I’m going to say in regards to the story and characters as a result of it’s all value experiencing for your self.
![Cutter Slade in combat in Outcast a new beginning](https://twinfinite.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Outcast-a-new-beginning-review-2.jpg?resize=640%2C360)
All in all, there are parallels that may be made to James Cameron’s Avatar films. Fortunately, Outcast’s story doesn’t relaxation on its laurels. What I’ll say in regards to the story is the way it progresses, as a result of it will possibly really feel repetitive. Every village has a handful of quests that require a number of steps that often devolve into speaking to the correct folks, going to gather the correct issues, and killing the correct enemies. You do that over and repeatedly, which is made worse when one quest requires you to finish one other quest, which requires you to finish yet one more quest.
These dry quest chains persist and is usually a drag on an in any other case attention-grabbing story and memorable characters. To make issues worse, the construct of the sport I performed had efficiency points that will see my frames dropping from 80+ to lower than 40 pretty often on modest settings. I additionally encountered a handful of audio bugs, cutscenes lacking audio, and even a few crashes. Fortunately, the autosaves are beneficiant and I by no means misplaced progress.
There can be a big day-one patch that’s supposed to repair a few of these points, which I’m grateful for, as a result of this sport is one thing particular.
4
Outcast: A New Starting
Outcast: A New Starting lives as much as the ambition the identical developer achieved all these years in the past. A charming story, attention-grabbing characters, considerate world-building and slick motion are solely barely marred by an inconsistent frame-rate, repetitive quests, bugs, and occasional crashes.
Execs
- Beautiful visuals
- Cutter Slade may be very likable
- Participating story
- Quircky aliens!
- Deep weapon customization
- Traversal feels nice!
- Unbelievable scale
- Forgiving autosaves
Cons
- Quests can really feel repetitive
- Wants optimizing
- The occasional lack of polish
- Sport may crash on occasion
A replica of this sport was supplied by the writer for evaluate. Reviewed on PC.