Outcast: A New Beginning Review

Return of a classic:

The first return of the gaming classic “Outcast” in 2017 wasn’t exactly exciting. Now the main hero Cutter Slade returns to the alien world of Adelpha for the third time. The open world game is particularly impressive in terms of graphics and atmosphere.

Welcome to “Outcast: A New Beginning“.

Story:

When the main character Cutter Slade reaches Adelpha again via the dimensional gate, the humans have launched an invasion on the alien planet and are threatening to destroy the Talans and their world. Driven by his desire to get back to his family on Earth, he teams up with the lovable aliens, collects snot from bird-like creatures to make beer or uses his guns to dismantle people’s battle droids into their individual parts.

The freedom to explore the world and fulfill a variety of tasks is very important in the open-world role-playing game from the Belgian developer Appeal. We used the PS5 version to find out for you whether fans of the series and fans of action RPGs in general get their money’s worth or whether they have to be more annoyed by the dark side of the adventure.

Gameplay:

“Outcast – A New Beginning” takes place around 20 years after the events of the first part or the remake “Outcast: Second Contact“, released in 2017.

As usual, the introduction is strictly linear. After the relatively short prologue, the pleasantly large, but not oversized world is more or less completely open to you to explore freely. You still have to do a little bit in the starting village of Emea, but after that it’s completely up to you in which of the six villages you want to be the first, second or third to gain the favor of the Talans and, as proof of this, the so-called Daromôn. Well, that’s not entirely true, because the quests of the individual villages are always closely interlinked. In order to raise a mysterious flying creature called Galenta, which you get from the main quest in Emea, you have to go to the neighboring town to find a suitable source of food, or even give escort to a handful of the Twôn-Ha bird creatures and lead them to Emea.

Gradually, something like outposts become accessible, which were previously hermetically sealed off by an impenetrable energy shield. Only when you have destroyed everyone can you face the final section. In between, you unlock other main missions, including boss fights, through general progress in these areas. The amount of playing time required to complete the story can vary greatly, especially since there are countless optional quests available in the world. But you can expect at least 20 hours. At 30 or 35 hours, however, most people are likely to slowly move towards 100 percent completion.

You move through the game world mainly on foot, but you get access to a jetpack early on, which allows you to float faster (and indefinitely) over the ground. You can improve the jetpack with resources primarily earned in village quests. In addition to the aforementioned maximum of five thrust charges, there are additional functions that allow you to float in the air for a while at the push of a button, to perform the evasive dash that would otherwise only be possible on the ground, or to glide through the air like with a wingsuit.

In “Outcast: A New Beginning” you can improve your chances in the world in many other areas in which you can make progress as freely as with the jetpack. The combat skills require another resource called nano parts, which you mainly get from defeated machine opponents such as robot spiders, battle droids or drones. But a lot of this ends up in your account when you play normally. And if necessary, you can also specifically grind the resource. First of all, the combat skills mainly bring improvements in shield power, melee damage dealt and the like. Later, a few active skills are added, such as a shield push or, as the ultimate combat skill, so to speak, a groundsmash from the air, which damages enemies on the ground and also throws at least the smaller ones to the side. However, you can only do it if you have the jetpack skill to hover in the air.

You unlock further advantages, especially in combat, by improving your primary weapons, of which there are only two in the game: a pistol and a rifle. Especially in outposts and other enemy facilities, you collect various weapon mods that you attach to the weapons.

Presentation:

The visually beautiful world, the humorous dialogues, which are optionally set entirely in German, the great playful freedom and even the predominantly monotonous fights are really fun for us in “Outcast – A New Beginning”. However, the sequel still has a few downsides.

The frame rate suffers some fairly significant drops on more than one occasion but, to make matters worse, in performance mode we see quite a few screen tearing problems that end up partially hindering the playability. These performance problems are especially disappointing after seeing games of a similar nature, such as Avatar Frontiers of Pandora (which is even somewhat superior in its graphical detail) moving without problem in similar circumstances.

 

Conclusion:

With “Outcast – A New Beginning” the series creator Appeal has clearly achieved an improvement compared to the 2017 remake. Graphically, playfully, narratively, in principle the sequel is slightly better in every area than its direct predecessor. The comparatively large amount of freedom in the game, which does not affect the balance of the game, the humorous dialogues with the Talans and the (rather dull) shooting action are particularly fun. However, the strengths can only partially hide the technical and control quirks or the sometimes generic or outdated mission design.

Anyone who liked the original or the remake can still access it more or less without hesitation.