Genre
Action, adventure
Publisher
THQ Nordic
Developer
Appeal Studios
Minimum Requirements
Processor Intel Core i3-7530K 4.2 GHz / AMD Ryzen 3 1300X 3.4 GHz, 8 GB RAM, graphics card with DirectX 11 support and 4 GB memory, such as NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti / AMD Radeon RX 5600 XT, 40 GB at storage device, Internet connection, operating system Windows 10 / 11
Recommended Requirements
Processor Intel Core i5-12400 2.5 GHz / AMD Ryzen 5 5600X 3.7 GHz, 16 GB RAM, graphics card with DirectX 12 support and 8 GB memory, such as NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 Super / AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT
release date
March 15, 2024
Localization
Voiceover and text
Age limit
From 12 years old
Platforms
PC, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, PS5
Official site
Played on PS5
Although Outcast is considered a cult project and “the best adventure game of 1999,” a lot of water has passed under the bridge since then, and it is unlikely that the announcement of the sequel caused a stir or even increased interest among both fans of the first part (or its 2017 remake) and players who heard about the series for the first time. And it’s not to say that the marketing materials evoked an uncontrollable desire to immediately rush to study Adelphi. There is a disgusting open world in the scenery of a long-familiar jungle, and not the most exciting plot premise, and the gameplay looks identical to that in a dozen other projects in the genre. To be honest, this impression is largely correct. Except that the plot in the trailers seemed a little more interesting than the real state of affairs.
⇡#Wrong time, wrong place
The protagonist of Outcast – A New Beginning, as in Outcast, is Cutter Slade, a military man with a difficult fate and excellent fighting skills. He also returned from the other world after one of his colleagues put a bullet in him – from the moment of awakening the story of the sequel begins. Cutter discovers that people are systematically and aggressively taking over Adelfa, and decides to confront the colonialists, while simultaneously making friends from the local peoples.
The whole plot is built on this: the hero foments resistance to human expansion, simultaneously trying to unite disparate tribes, and also to understand the nature of his invulnerability and find his daughter in this chaos. In general, the script formula is quite working, but there is one nuance: presentation. The authors decided to resort to a lot of flashbacks, non-linear storytelling and a lot of third-party stories, merging into a narrative mess, which is quite difficult to understand and, worse, simply uninteresting. And many episodes that are designed to add intrigue do not carry anything at all, both on an emotional and semantic level, and seem to be taken out of context. Worst of all, we are bombarded with verbal exposition too often and too generously.
There are a lot of dialogues in the game, and they are mostly boring to the point of yawning. Conversations are replete with dozens of unnecessary details that simply overload the perception, and they hardly contribute to the liveliness of the characters. At the same time, the dialogues are marked by very strange emotional leaps of the interlocutors: here Cutter is treated with contempt in one line – and then, literally in the next, the interlocutor is already favorable to the hero. There is no integrity not only in the dialogues, but also in the characters: most of the characters are cardboard and faceless. Including the main character, who tries to be either Captain Shepard or Nathan Drake, but in fact is remembered only by his inexpressive character and ridiculous witticisms. The amount of verbal jokes, in principle, seems excessive – they do not seem appropriate and kill any attempts to take what is happening on the screen seriously. Finally, they just aren't funny.
It doesn’t become funny when you realize that with such a level of narrative, the authors decided to focus on… narrative. As I mentioned, there are a lot of dialogues and cutscenes, but you don’t have enough energy to watch them for long. Individual stories can arouse interest, but it quickly breaks down into a chain of boring quests of the “get to a remote point and just talk to the character” type of quests. This is the case when you sincerely enjoy tasks in the spirit of clearing an outpost or storming a base.
⇡#Oh wonderful empty world
But the action turned out to be noticeably better than the narrative elements. Yes, it really feels like a cross between Just Cause, Anthem, Mass Effect: Andromeda and a lot of other projects, but it still successfully compiles borrowings and is capable of good entertainment. There are interesting tactical options with a jetpack, an energy shield, and shooting – maybe not the most responsive, but quite fun. And although there are not so many basic guns, there is plenty of variability in the ways of dealing with opponents.
Thanks for this to the modular weapon system. Each barrel has a certain number of slots for modifications, which not only redistribute the characteristics, but also change the principle of use. For example, from a pistol you can make a fast-firing submachine gun with exploding shells or a heavy and slow revolver, which compensates for the slowness with absolutely monstrous power. It’s really interesting to experiment and shuffle your combat lineup in search of the most effective combination, especially if you’ve already managed to collect several weapons and a dozen modules.
Finding weapon modules and testing them at outposts turned out to be the most exciting part of Outcast – A New Beginning. Firstly, because of the truly valuable loot, and secondly, it’s really interesting to fight with human or android opponents, since there are many varieties of bobbleheads (there are especially strong ones, and snipers, and fast, and deadly swift), and You really need to select certain tactics for them. It's a pity that there aren't that many outposts and bases.
The rest of the world is boring both visually and in terms of content. You can move towards the quest marker for ten minutes, and nothing will happen or be encountered along the way. But even if you are lucky enough to stumble upon something, you will hardly be in for an exciting experience – these will be typical activities in the spirit of “running from point to point in a certain time” or, say, clearing an area of local living creatures, which, unlike human opponents do not promise tactical diversity at all, but simply attack the hero in a crowd.
To be honest, the authors of Outcast – A New Beginning should have abandoned the idea of an open world altogether and taken advantage of the experience of, say, the developers of Outriders. It's a similar game in many ways, without an open world or mind-bending narrative, but where the developers focused on what they did best – gunplay and non-stop action. This approach would solve a lot of the problems of the Outcast sequel, where for every one interesting scene or situation there are ten tedious ones.
***
The open world of the new Outcast – as well as its narrative, its approach to character development, location design, and local humor – reminded us of how games were made twenty years ago. This is not a completely bad project, but rather secondary and noticeably outdated. Yes, there are a couple of interesting decisions, but in general, the Outcast sequel looks like a blatant throwback from the past. However, to some this may seem like a significant advantage.
Advantages:
fun action segments; The modular weapon modification system is really successful.
Flaws:
a nondescript main character and the same secondary characters; crumpled narration and overloaded boring dialogues; an uninteresting open world with a minimum of interesting activities.
Graphics
Visually, Outcast – A New Beginning is rather bland: we have already seen analogues of the local landscapes in dozens of other projects, and they hardly strike the imagination, like the notorious corridors of technical structures. Except that a couple of settlements have a really interesting visual identity.
The animations are also quite expensive: the movements of the characters sometimes look unnatural and jagged, and the synchronization of words and lip movements sometimes disappears.
Sound
Everything explodes, shoots, collides, hums and roars at a level that is authentic enough to immerse you in the thick of battle. In a word, it fulfills the function.
But if you play with Russian voice acting, forget about immersion! All its aspects are executed horribly, starting from the dissonance between the sound of the lines and the environment and ending with simply the final quality of the material – as if no one gave the actors any instructions on the characters’ characters, or on the context of the events around them, or on the emotional content of the scene. On the other hand, the source material does not shine with dramatic delights, but at least it does not cause such strong rejection – at least technically the English version is noticeably better.
Single player game
A tedious adventure in an uninteresting open world to explore, but with a good action component.
Estimated completion time
Although the campaign can be completed in fifteen to twenty hours, they will seem like a good hundred to you. And if you want to explore the local map up and down… however, you won’t want to.
Group game
Not provided.
General impression
Perhaps hardcore fans of the first part (or its remake) will find something for themselves here, but even they risk falling asleep in a boring open world, watching the development of the Lenten plot. Unless the cheerful action segments dilute the overall routine.
Rating: 5.0/10
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