Have you ever bought a game on a whim? By that I mean you aren’t super hyped for it but you are looking for something to play at the time and take a chance on a game. Has that game ever ended up becoming an instant favourite of yours? That’s exactly the type of game Outcast: A New Beginning became for me as I played it, and quite frankly I’m sad that it’s over.

Outcast: A New Beginning is a sequel to the original game, a game that came out 20+ years ago! That’s a long time to wait for a sequel, so when it was when announced people seemed a bit puzzled. Why build a sequel to game so old that no one probably even remembered it. As someone who was going into this game without ever playing the original I can confidently tell you that you won’t need to have played the first game.

A Simple Yet Effective Narrative.

Developed by Appeal Studio, the developer from the original, it’s clear from the beginning that the passion for the IP is there. You play as Commander Cutter Slade who was blamed for the death of his ex wife and wiping out a huge chunk of the human population. You start the game in a temple as you’ve been resurrected by the Yods (gods) on the planet Adelpha. The world is inhabited by the Talon’s but has since been taken over by humans who have taken interest in mining the world’s resources, a source of great power and the local’s have been enslaved by humans. The Talon call Slade the Ulukai, the savior sent from the Yod’s. For some reason the Talon don’t realize Slade is human and don’t think of him as the enemy.

It starts out as a fairly basic storyline. With Commander Slade being resurrected his memory is a bit… foggy at best. He doesn’t quite remember much about the events of the past but as things progress he slowly starts to piece things together and his goal becomes clear. Get back to earth to be with his daughter. That remains the goal for the first two-thirds of the game until it becomes clear there is a much bigger mission at play. You are in contact with an unnamed human who is part of the invasion force but doesn’t believe in the cause and is trying to help Slade. I don’t want to say too much more about the story as I think it’s definitely worth investing in and won’t spoil anything.

What I will say though is the dialogue is quite entertaining. It never takes itself too seriously and their is quite a bit of humour embedded into it. To see Slade make a comment from a human perspective and it just go right over the local Talon’s heads led to quite a few chuckles for me. It’s not a comedy by any means, but amusing is a great word for it.

Ubisoft Meets Just Cause Gameplay

I was trying to think of a way to better write that headline but I just can’t. The gameplay is exactly that. A vibrant open world with plenty to do mixed with some crazy traversal as you soar through the air. If I showed you the world’s map you’d think it’s straight out of Assassin’s Creed or Ghost Recon. There’s 7 main cities and throughout the world there’s outposts to clear, Gork Eruption’s, which are basically just little pockets of alien wildlife to clear and some light platforming race against the time activities to help upgrade your life and earn resources for other upgrades.

The main mission’s are split up into each city. There is an over arching main mission but the ultimate goal is to complete each villages tasks in order to earn the chiefs trust in order to give you the cities piece of the puzzle needed to complete said main mission. I actually really liked how they did this. It left things pretty much wide open for how you wanted to attack it, what village you wanted to do first and many of them are intertwined. You can do so many missions in one village, but eventually you will need to move on to another village and do some things there in order to progress the current village. The missions also felt fresh and kept a good pace. Some were fetch quests, some were clear out an outpost and some were more story focused.

The combat is fairly basic. You have a basic melee attack and only ever get 2 guns, a pistol and an assault rifle. You can upgrade and add attachments to both guns to change them up a little bit, but for the most part they play and feel the same from beginning to end. As you progress you do gain a few new special moves to use,such as a ground smash or the ability to shoot bugs or other alien lifeforms to attack for you. These moves had cooldown effects though and can’t just be spammed. The ammo for the guns are also the elements in the game which you get from killing enemies and finding a crystal to smash in the world which i rarely ever had to do as killing enemies seemed to be good enough. I will say I played the game on normal so perhaps the crystal smashing mechanic is needed on hard more. The game also never seemed overly difficult. I only died a couple of times, mostly during boss battles later on in the game.

One thing you will need to do a lot of however is picking up resources, both off enemies and throughout the world in order to build up your inventory upgrades and craft potions. Most of it you can do during normal gameplay, but once in awhile you’d need to go out of your way to find some resources, though outside of plants for health potions you could probably get through the game without most other upgrades.

As I mentioned earlier, the other main piece of gameplay is the traversal. There are plenty of portals spread about the world to use for fast travel and after you complete the first village’s questline you will get a Galenta, a giant….i’m not even gonna pretend to attempt to explain what kind of animal it looks like, that you can fly around on. But what you will be doing most of the time is using your jetpack. Whether its during gunfights when you can jump and hover to shoot and get an angle advantage or gliding around the map it I must say it’s quite fun and something not really seen in gaming to the degree it is here since Just Cause 4.

One Of The Most Beautiful World’s In Gaming

One thing I really need to highlight with Outcast: A New Beginning is truly one of the most beautiful worlds I’ve seen in gaming. From the alien life that inhabits it to the sprawling land, incredibly detailed villages and just an impressive variety of landscapes, Outcast has it all. Whether you are in the dense jungle, desolate desert or up in the snowy mountains, everything looks fantastic. Even the character design is fun and unique. I will say the character animations are a bit stiff and the human characters aren’t anything to write home about, but everything else is top notch, especially for a budget title.

From a technical standpoint the game runs well. The only time i ever really had noticeable framerate issues was during cutscenes that would have some extreme stuttering. The game also crashed twice during the same Gork Eruption. I’m not sure if it was that specific spot in the game or if it was because I used too many specialty moves at once that just overwhelmed the game and caused it to crash. But for the most part it ran well.

Summary

Outcast: A New Beginning is a game that came out of left field for me and was constantly on my mind whenever I wasn’t playing it. With a solid narrative, fun gameplay and a top tier world to explore with plenty to do, Outcast is now a franchise that will be on my radar going forward. And if Appeal chooses not to continue the franchise the studio is definitely on my radar with whatever they do decide to make next.

Outcast: A New Beginning was reviewed on Xbox Series X. The game is also available on Playstation 5 and Steam.