Outcast – A New Beginning review: enchanting world, a bit monotonous

I’ve been looking forward to this moment for a long time. As a huge fan of the original Outcast from 1999, I’ve been wanting a sequel for a quarter century. After various HD remakes and a remastered version, the time has finally come. Outcast – A New Beginning continues the story of ex-Navy Seal and portal traveller Cutter Slade. The game boasts a huge, colourful sci-fi world. However, I’d have preferred a bit less nostalgia in the gameplay.

Off to a flying start

As soon as I press start, I’m right in the thick of it. Cutter Slade is revived by all-powerful Yods. He then falls through a portal, meets a Talan woman and moments later, fights droids with a laser shield and blaster. Talans are the inhabitants of planet Adelpha. Once again, they’re being attacked by alien forces, and Slade has to fix the situation. Because he’s a nice guy, but also because he can’t go back to his world unless he does. The invaders are also connected to his past, and Slade doesn’t know why exactly. You’ve probably never heard this before, but he has partial amnesia.

Shortly after, the attackers turn out to be human. I learn more about the background story through visions that haunt Slade. They show a bald general who wants to enslave the «primitive» Talans. He’s a cliché villain, the kind you see in every action film from the 80s and 90s. For the most part, this also applies to the inconsequential main story and Cutter Slade himself. In 1999, the one-dimensional action hero made sense, but in 2024, his slogans just leave me shrugging my shoulders wearily. Here are a few examples:

• I got a bad feeling about this
• I was born ready
• The power core is missing
• We gotta stop meeting like this

If the game is trying to poke fun at itself, that’s not coming across. Incidentally, it was developed by Belgian studio Appeal, just like the original game.

Slade’s voice is just as inconspicuous as his appearance. «He looks like an accountant,» my wife notes when she sees Cutter Slade. Nothing against accountants, but Slade’s face and personality are so bland that I wouldn’t recognise him without his iconic orange top, even amongst Talans.

Here are some other problems with Outcast – A New Beginning. Adelpha’s inhabitants are good-natured oafs who provide a smile or two in a lot of dialogues. But there’s nothing alien about them. They look like humans, just a little more wrinkly and with three fingers instead of five. The fact that many of them are based on almost identical character models doesn’t make them any more interesting.

What’s more, their behaviour and way of speaking barely differ from humans. Their most striking trait is that they take everything Slade says literally. It’s funny the first few times, but wears off quickly. Their vocabulary does nothing to change this, even with the help of a glossary I can access at the touch of a button. The game would’ve benefitted from a little more personality. Apart from more varied missions, that’s what I missed the most.

Shoot, collect and start all over again

My goal is to send Slade back to his world. But to do this, I need Talan support, which I garner by helping their seven villages. If I complete a specific number of missions, they reward me with the Daromôn, a kind of ceremonial plate that I can present to Almayel, the holy ruler, as proof of my achievements.

Missions are often packed into entertaining stories, such as helping a Talan retrieve an artefact from a nearby lake that turns out to be an egg. To hatch it, I first have to entice Twôn-Has – a kind of two-legged llama – to eat away the harmful parasites. When the flying whale creature called Galenta finally emerges, I have to organise food and take her for a walk.

In another village, I meet Draod, the Talan who smokes weed and wants to turn his house into a giant bong. This goes totally wrong, but gives Slade the idea of repurposing the invention for bombs.

Unfortunately, these missions sound more varied than they are. In essence, 90% of all activities follow one of three patterns: shoot everything, escort or collect. One of the most common missions is clearing enemy bases. I usually have to hack a certain number of terminals, i.e. click on them and ultimately destroy a reactor. As well as invaders, native creatures are also on my hit list. For instance, when I have to destroy monster nests. In terms of gameplay, there’s no difference.

I regularly catch escapee Twôn-Has or other domesticated animals and protect them from ravenous monsters along the way. Then there are missions where I have to chase orange flares so that they open doors to temples or chests.

They’re just checklists, which isn’t bad per se. At the start of an Outcast session, I’m usually all fired up to travel through the brightly coloured world and complete tasks. But after an hour, frustration usually kicks in. Especially once I’ve completed a mission then stare at the huge list of identical tasks again.

The nested menu structure is the icing on the cake. Meanwhile, the overview map shows different villages. If I select one, a quest menu opens, showing me three or four goals I have to reach in order to gain village support. If I click on one, another menu opens. This shows several task strands I have to solve in order to meet one of the goals. Jeez!

As if that wasn’t cumbersome enough, tasks are often spread across several regions. I regularly have to travel from one village to another for the smallest collection task or delivery. Fortunately, this is quick thanks to the fast travel option via portals I’ve already activated. But it makes me feel like I’m spending half the time in menus and teleporting around. It’s incredibly reminiscent of another outer space game. Still, at least that let me travel a whole planet without loading.

I travel back and forth between villages and even within the villages themselves more than Taylor Swift on her world tour. The game constantly sends me from one Talan to the next and back again. All the chatter is what finally does it for me. I’ll admit, static conversations try my patience in all games, but Outcast – A New Beginning has more dialogue than an adventure game. And because I never know whether a question mark in the dialogue menu hides optional background data or information relevant to the quest, I have to click my way through. I usually do this in a rush, as otherwise all the dialogue would overwhelm me. A shame, because unlike Slade, the Talans can be quite funny.

Shooting and jetting around

When my fingers aren’t steaming from skipping dialogue, I’m flying around with my jetpack and shooting at anything that gets in my way. In the first five minutes of the game, Slade gets a weapon and a laser shield, as well as a motor to buckle on. I can use it to jump several metres with short boosts. You can get upgrades for the jetpack, shield and Slade’s weapons, which are unlockable via resources you get for completing missions.

The jetpack is the highlight of Slade’s equipment – I supplemented the initial boost with others. This multiple jump lets me climb up to the highest areas. And with the acceleration upgrade, I zoom through the countryside as if I’d eaten a Mario Kart turbo mushroom. You can also temporarily hover in the air once you have the right upgrade. Having freedom of movement is great and makes exploring the game world a joy.

I’d just say that to all intents and purposes, the shield is unnecessary. Although this wards off projectiles, it’s easier to dodge them. I occasionally need the shield as a melee weapon, but even then it’s only effective with the appropriate upgrades, which is why I prefer my two ranged weapons. I can modify them with different modules and convert them into submachine guns, mine launchers and target rifles. The main difference between the two weapons is the number of modules that can be equipped as well as ammunition type. These come in the form of crystals lying all over Adelpha. Once I’ve used them up, the guns still fire, but the modules are deactivated.

Over time, the toy guns turn into laser-spitting weapons, and it’s great fun to turn robots into scrap. It’s just a shame that my enemies are so stupid. You don’t need any tactics in battles. All it takes is shooting them in the head and dodging occasionally. It makes me miss Horizon Forbidden West, as it’s similar, but the battles against robot dinosaurs are more dynamic and varied.

In the course of the game, the two pistols are joined by a special weapon. The orus gun is a type of grenade launcher with four modes: zero gravity, bomb rain, insect plague and a vine that roots enemies. As the modes have cool-downs, they can only be used sporadically. Moreover, not a lot of enemies sit around in groups, so these AoE attacks are of little use. Nevertheless, it’s fun to summon a flock of birds that throw bombs at your enemies.

A brave new world

The greatest strength of Outcast – A New Beginning is the game world. Adelpha is beautiful. Even the original was visually stunning, and I bought a new graphics card for it. In the meantime, the Voxel engine has now been retired, and Appeal uses the Unreal engine in its place. It conjures up lush green jungle landscapes with gigantic redwoods, glowing hot lava fields and turquoise-blue stretches of sea on-screen. And everywhere I look, I see strange plants and animals.

Then there’s the verticality. The village of Desan, for example, is located at the top of a high rock formation. The breakneck ascent alone took me five minutes. Then again, I can dive off the white beaches of Sappa and enjoy the beautiful underwater world. There’s not much to discover, but it’s still fun.

The villages themselves are also magical. On my first few visits, I feel like a tourist running into passers-by in open-mouthed amazement. In real life, the farming village of Bidaa with its huge water wheel, Emea with its romantic tree houses and the temples of Prokirana would be overrun by selfie-sticked influencers. Fortunately, I’m spared them and get Adelpha all to myself so I can explore the world in peace.

While Outcast – A New Beginning trumps its predecessor in every respect when it comes to visuals, the same can’t be said of its soundtrack. Composer Lennie Moore and the Moscow Symphony Orchestra created the perfect leitmotif for the original futuristic adventure game. While its score for Outcast – A New Beginning also sounds good, it reminds me too much of Star Wars. This prevents the game developing its own identity. Instead, I’m always expecting to hear the «bschhh» of a lightsabre.

Cheerful checklist game, but disappointing sequel

I’m a tad disappointed. I’d hoped that Outcast – A New Beginning would spark the same feeling in me as the original did 25 years ago. That warm tingle in your stomach, discovering an unknown world, interacting with different cultures and having new adventures. The sequel only manages this to a limited extent.

In 1999, there were practically no sci-fi open-world games. But today, Outcast – A New Beginning has to compete with countless other games in this genre, and as a result, the bar is high. To stand out from the crowd, it no longer cuts it to just design a beautiful world and fill it with sophisticated tasks. This is my main criticism of the sequel. Missions almost always play out the same way. I either have to collect or destroy something. Because the combat system hardly offers any variation, it soon feels like hard work. The fact that main character Cutter Slade is also behind the times with his old-fashioned action hero attitude further dampens the joy of the game.

But this doesn’t make Outcast – A New Beginning a bad game. It’s mainly carried by its beautiful graphics and the world associated with them. Adelpha is a wonderful place, and all the Talan villages look unique. Thanks to the versatile jetpack, sightseeing is particularly fun. And if that’s not enough, you also get a more elegant travel option during the course of the game.

I’d recommend Outcast – A New Beginning to anyone who enjoys exploring pretty worlds and doesn’t mind working through checklists. There’s a lot to see, even more to shoot, and the action really pops off. The game doesn’t take itself very seriously. Slade and the Talans fool around too much for that, and I’d recommend you do the same. It’s a guaranteed way of having fun with Outcast – A New Beginning. It was for me – well, most of the time.

Outcast – A New Beginning is available on 15 March for PC, PS5 and Xbox Series. THQ Nordic kindly provided a copy of the game for me to test out.