Review — Outcast - A New Beginning

Return to Adelpha and help its native habitants as the iconic Cutter Slade in Outcast — A New Beginning.

25 years ago, Outcast was made by a small Belgian studio called Appeal and published by the French Infogrames for PC. The game received much critical acclaim and was lauded as one of the best open-world action adventures games ever. In fact, Outcast is often named as one of the first games to actually nail the open-world concept, opening the doors for many more to come in the later years. Almost from the start, the player was able to venture anywhere, barring some quest-specific locations, and was only limited by their skill to defeat the ever growing roster of increasingly difficult enemies. A sequel was in the works but was never released due to financial troubles, but a remake was released in 2017 by Bigben Interactive (now known as Nacon, another French publisher), which saw a release for Xbox One and PlayStation 4 as well. Now, in 2024, THQ Nordic (an Austrian company this time), finally released the long awaited sequel which they announced back in 2021.

A New Hope

Outcast: A New Beginning takes off where the first game ended: with Cutter Slade. Slade is a retired Navy SEAL turned mercenary who was tasked with protecting a group of scientists on a trip to an alien world known as Adelpha. Things never go according to plan of course. Slades loses the scientist and gets hailed as the savior and messiah of Adelpha by the planet’s native inhabitants known as the Talan. You know, typical boys’ night out stuff. Things get even worse and Slade ends up — SPOILER ALERT — not surviving his ordeals. With Outcast: A New Beginning literally comes a new beginning for Slade, as he is resurrected by the planet’s gods, the Yods (yeah…), where he discovers that the Talans are being enslaved by an invading species. Another SPOILER ALERT perhaps, but you quickly find out its the humans. Because of course it would be humans. Slade decides to help out his newfound friends and is tasked with travelling all over Adelpha to open up portals and prepare the Talans for defense… and procreation. Yeah, it gets weird quick, and often… Without getting too much into spoiler territory, be prepared for some zany and wacky adventures, which can feel very all over the place sometimes.

The story is all a little too on the nose sometimes, and given that the game is a proper sequel, a lot of information is dumped on the player quickly, and you are often assumed to know what certain terms or who certain characters are. I do have to give credit to the developed for including context-based information though. Throughout conversations, you’ll have the option to hold a button explaining any highlighted words and terms, such as “Talan” or “Yods”, and even provide information on notable characters. A New Beginning actually feels like a proper new beginning, which will be very useful for the large amount of players who never played the first game, be it the original or the remake.

Luscious Locales

The game’s quests take you across the vast landscape of Adelpha, which admittedly looks quite nice. It’s not Ghost of Tsushima jaw-dropping levels of lusciousness, but A New Beginning offers a nice and variety of landscapes to explore, such as lush jungles to navigate through, or vast desert to fly over. And navigating these wonderful worlds is made easy thanks to the game’s fluid movement controls. While Slade starts out with only a simple jet pack, soon you’ll be flying halfway across the worlds as if you are playing a Just Cause title. As you move around and progress through the main quest and tackle the side missions, you’ll encounter more and more advanced gear and weaponry. The jet pack is just the beginning, and it won’t take long before the player can soar across Adelpha effortlessly.

Slade also starts off with a rather tiny and silly looking handgun, but you’ll quickly find upgrades as you clear out outposts controlled by robots sent there by the evil humans. Your main weapon can be upgraded with attachment you find, and soon a secondary weapon can be equipped as well. Outfitted with a slow-swinging but devastatingly damaging blade, Slade quickly becomes a mercenary worthy of the name. I did find a certain upgrade to be a little too strong in the early game, mainly an attachment that turned my gun’s bullets into sticky projectiles that would deal damage first, and then explode for even more damage. I was able to mow down robots and wild creatures alike like it was nothing, almost tempting me to remove the attachment. Combat does feel satisfying and smooth, and the combination of your guns and melee weapon and the ability to utilize all your maneuverability in battle makes for a great experience. Defeating enemies grants you experience points and collectibles that can be used to upgrade your abilities and weapons, making Slade increasingly powerful. And as mentioned before, you quickly become a bit too powerful. Combined with the often downright stupid enemy AI, combat is rarely a challenge.

Did I Stutter!?

Outcast: A New Beginning plays and looks nice enough, but I did notice some performance issues. While the graphics are fine, and sometimes even quite pretty to look at, I consistently noticed screen tearing and texture drop-ins everywhere I went. Especially given that the movement is so fluid and fast-paced, quickly moving the camera around did my eyes no service. Additionally, within the first half hour of playing I noticed a typo in a subtitle, and saw a spear phasing through a character’s hand in an unnatural way.

A New Beginning feels very janky at times, comparably to a Eurojank title like Elex II, a game that was certainly not bad, but very unpolished. And that is the case with A New Beginning too, which is a shame because you can tell the developer put an enormous amount of effort in creating a unique world with vast lore and wonderful character-building, but it times it just feels… off. You’ll notice this in the character models as well, which all stare blankly at you when talking about the most exiting thing that ever happened to them. But on the other hand, the game has some amazing moments, especially the Talan’s inability to grasp human idioms, which they’ll interpret literally. You notice the develop put their heart into this game, but it could have done with a bit more polish. Nothing game-breaking, but graphical glitches and constant screen stuttering does get annoying quickly.

The Verdict

Outcast: A New Beginning is a fine game, despite the graphical glitches and performance. The vast open world, the fluid and responsive combat combined with the ability to customize your limited arsenal and the creative world-building ensures anyone can have a great time with the game. A New Beginning could have done with a little more polish perhaps, but all in all it is an enjoyable experience. A fine game.

3/5

Reviewed on PlayStation 5.
Download code received by the publisher and PR agency.