Must Know
What’s it? A sequel to the 1999 basic action-adventure recreation, Outcast.
Launch date March 15, 2024
Count on to pay $59.99 / £49.99
Developer Enchantment Studios
Writer THQ Nordic
Reviewed on Nvidia RTX 3090 Ti, 32GB RAM (DDR4), AMD Ryzen 7 5700X, ASRock B450M Pro4
Multiplayer? No
Steam Deck Sure
Hyperlink Steam
There is a basic contradiction between how Outcast – A New Starting appears and sounds to the way it truly performs. Visually, it is usually epic. The alien world of Adelpha has by no means appeared higher, with Pandora-lite environments seamlessly alternating between lush, verdant forests, shimmering coastal beachfronts, rocky mountainous expanses, snow-capped peaks and waterfall-laden historic metropolises partially reclaimed by nature. The audio, utitlising the identical sweeping orchestral soundtrack of the unique recreation, can also be lovely and atmospheric—it at all times speaks of wondrous cosmic adventures that await. What a disgrace, then, that hero of the hour Cutter Slade spends a lot of his time in Outcast – A New Starting enterprise very mundane, removed from epic, open world busywork.
Here is a typical type of trade. Cutter Slade, ex-Navy SEAL and now, after far too lengthy trapped on the alien world of Adelpha, haggard-looking dad bod chosen one, goes to alien Talan A as a result of Talan B has informed him he must for plot functions. Talan A, after prolonged dialogue, a lot of which welcomes the skip button, reveals he may also help Cutter however solely after the cosmic house adventurer has gone to D to assemble X quantities of Z. However D cannot be accessed till Talan C has been helped with Y. And so forth and so forth.
These duties fluctuate in mundanity, starting from escort missions (reminiscent of slowly guiding a Twon-Ha house ostriches, who continually want you to double again in the event you get even somewhat bit too removed from them), to merchandise gathering missions (seize 10 house fruits), to straight-out home chores (herding 12 house cows right into a pen). At mutliple occasions there are mechanics the place for a location’s most important plot to be superior, you actually should go collect a specific amount of assets and stroll as much as a desk/pot/bench with a “0/10” quantity indicator floating above it, and feed the assets into it. In these moments, development is easy courier work whereas watching digital numbers go up. Go get 10 bug larvae, return to pot, put larvae in pot. Wow! Now I really feel like a kick-ass ex-Navy SEAL house adventurer for positive.
It is an odd and barely deflating expertise, and particularly so after the Outcast’s preliminary wind-up jolts you into the sport’s out of this world setting, story and gameplay mechanics in a fairly uneven opening half-hour, replete with disorientating cinematics and a practical however trite tutorial. I nearly held on as I would bought the background of what got here earlier than within the unique Outcast lodged in my reminiscence, however it did make me marvel what a totally contemporary gamer would suppose.
Fortunately, by the point the opening a part of Outcast – A New Starting is over, the important thing plot factors are clearer: Adelpha is being plundered by baddies for its pure assets and the native Talan aliens are primarily enslaved and powerless to cease this. Fortunately, Cutter, who’s desperately making an attempt to get again residence, may also help obtain this by aiding the Talans in two most important methods: one is to assist deliver life to Adelpha (by way of doing a lot busywork so a Talan mating pageant can happen) and the opposite is to deliver dying to the invaders and kick them out. Progressing each of those macro plots splits the sport down the center content-wise, actually, with one aspect naturally leaning quite a bit in direction of fight missions and the opposite extra in direction of exploration, speaking with locals and, sure, fetch quest busywork. Do bits of each of these items in every Adelpha village and Cutter will get the assist he wants from the village chief. As soon as all chiefs have signed up then… yeah, you see how this works.
Being candid, whereas this recreation’s fight is stable (we’ll get to that later), this core recreation construction, which just about revels in open world chores and stuffed dialogue wheels, wouldn’t survive one second if it weren’t for this recreation’s wonderful and empowering motion, which comes courtesy of Cutter’s jetpack. This jetpack, which you get proper from the beginning of the sport and might be upgraded in a variety of cool methods, severely lightens the load when enterprise yet one more uninspired quest, because it makes exploration and journey actually enjoyable.
Jetpack joyride
Cutter can enhance soar together with his jetpack (a number of occasions with just a few upgrades), hover at pace over the floor of Adelpha (together with water, which is basically cool), and even take full flight in bursts. It is like Alloy’s glidey parachute mechanic within the Horizon sequel however far cooler and extra helpful. Achieve peak with the jetpack and you’ll dive in direction of the earth after which swoop like a hen, solely to regain peak, and do the entire thing once more. Improve the jetpack to the backend of its capability tree and you’ll scream round Adelpha like The Rocketeer, which is bang on level for Outcast’s basic sci-fi journey comedian really feel.
Certainly, I might argue that the jetpack is the factor that actually helps replicate among the unique Outcast’s expansive marvel. Within the unique recreation it was mind-blowing to suppose that in the event you might see someplace in considered one of its interconnected worlds then you may attain it, whereas every shimmering portal provided a magic door to a different wondrous realm. In A New Starting, the jetpack is your key to reaching these epic-looking lands you can see within the distance, or means up excessive within the sky, and in contrast to the unique, there aren’t any loading screens between areas. That is one massive open world and the jetpack lets Cutter fly about all of it. Portals, of which there are numerous, are actually simply fairly shortcuts.
No less than Enchantment, the developer right here, appears to grasp this, and has in-built a lot of jetpack time trials to get pleasure from. These contain discovering a trial’s place to begin (a magic house bulb) after which following a glowing path efficiently with out crashing or getting shot out of the sky. Attain the bulb and you’ll slash it open for factors that may go in direction of upgrading or unlocking new talents. I discovered myself drawn to those trials they usually tapped into the most effective a part of the sport. Crucially, there’s by no means a dialogue wheel or merchandise assortment bucket in sight. It is pure boosting, gliding and flying round a fairly alien world, and that is all proper by me.
On the bottom the jetpack proves helpful, too, permitting Cutter to primarily lengthy soar by urgent the sprint button after which the soar button in sequence. This sees Cutter hurled in any course at nice pace and is nice for leaping over expanses or, extra critically, closing floor on enemies or dodging their assaults in fight situations.
Excessive prejudice
Fight in Outcast – A New Starting is a third-person over-the-shoulder affair that appears like Mass Impact: Andromeda however with no cowl system. Cutter has an power protect (which can be used as a melee weapon) to dam incoming fireplace after which a small arsenal of pistols and rifles to dispatch evil robotic sorts or hostile native beasts.
Weapon customization is a spotlight of Outcast. Each slot has mod slots, and in the event you get a selected capability you possibly can even improve these slots. If you issue within the big range of mods, there’s quite a bit a participant can do to tailor their loadout to their tastes/playstyle.
For instance, sure mods will make it so a weapon will barely heal Cutteron a kill, whereas others enable ammunition to routinely residence to targets, largely taking aiming out of the query (the sport’s auto lock-on is supremely beneficiant by default). Different mods let weapons fireplace explosive mines, scale back cooldowns, make the weapon fireplace a number of rounds directly, enhance injury towards a selected sort of enemy, improve the hearth charge, enhance injury dealt near overheating and so forth. There’s a great deal of choices and you’ll chop and alter your loadout with out penalty.
With these weapons Cutter is tasked with eradicating enemy amenities, both to close them down and rob them of their power cores, or to free prisoners who’re being held hostage. It is commonplace go right here, clear this, loot that stuff, however it’s nonetheless fairly satisfying to undertake. Weapons have punch, and while you issue within the dodging and manoeuvring choices Cutter’s jetpack delivers, fights might be fairly dynamic. Sometimes there’s a boss battle, however you are doing the identical type of stuff. Dodging assaults and capturing weak factors. Enemy bases are in fact stuffed with house chests, which as soon as looted, present precious improve factors. You already know the rating.
When Cutter’s not capturing enemy robots he is clearing hostile native beast nests which have unfold over Adelpha. These play very very like the monster nests in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. You go to an space, should kill a set quantity of creatures, destroy some creature nests, then blow up the central infestation. These are repetitive because the creatures have very primary assault patterns and solely show any type of problem as a result of there are such a lot of of them. It is extra a case of capturing random transferring issues till there’s nothing left transferring. It isn’t very epic in any respect.
Outdated canine, previous methods
Outcast – A New Starting is a superbly serviceable open world recreation—one which performs to the heritage of the sequence when it comes to its fairly world and musical rating, in addition to ’70s house journey comedian vibes and tone. However whereas its presentation is new, the expertise beneath it, typically, isn’t. Not dangerous by any means, however that is unadventurous open world gaming that, jetpack apart, you have skilled earlier than.