Outcast: A New Beginning – The Underwhelming but Ultimately Enjoyable Return of Cutter Slade!

“But a stranger in a strange land, he is no one. Men know him not, and to know not is to care not for”.
– Bram Stoker

Pros

• Excellent art direction that creates a vibrant, detailed world that truly feels alien and is spectacular to explore.
• Progression feels satisfying and well-paced: between custom weapons and upgrades, there always are new things to try.
• Weapon customization opens up many possibilities: it’s fun to experiment with module combinations on the fly.
• Exploration is compelling not only for secondary points of interest but also secret collectibles that may unlock unique rewards.
• Substantial amount of lore to discover between entries, dialogues, logs and other info pieces, for those interested.

Cons

• Difficulty is mild even on hard and only becomes easier with no enemies strong enough to be a real match at any point.
• Limited variety of foe types leads to highly repetitive fights, including several recycled bosses.
• The quest system is confusing and disorganized, tries to look deep but only ends up making a mess.
• Most tasks, including main quests, feel too similar to each other and rarely offer a real variation upon already-seen archetypes.
• The overall story and characters, Slate above all, don’t feel compelling or interesting enough to really hook the player at any point.

Bugs & Issues

• Significant performance drops in specific areas and most villages, regardless of settings or hardware.
• Quest triggers may not work correctly and require multiple instances of fast travelling/reloading to get them unstuck.
• Sometimes, enemies get stuck in walls, or floors or just v-pose around without acting.

Machine Specs

• i9 13980HX
• 64GB RAM DDR5
• RTX 4090
• NvME SSD
• 3840×2160

Content & Replay Value

It took me around 36 hours to complete Outcast – A New Beginning on Hard difficulty, taking considerable extra time to clear all points of interest and side quests and to max out each skill tree. The entire adventure is linear: there is no reason to replay.

Is It Worth Buying?

Yes, but not for full price. The amount of content and its quality aren’t worth a full AAA price tag, even if they’re decent enough, so I’d recommend waiting for at least 50% off.

Verdict:

Decent

This sequel to the legendary Outcast comes with more than a few compromises that hardcore fans of the series won’t like; yet it manages to deliver an enjoyable, albeit simplistic experience.

Outcast – A New Beginning – In-Depth Analysis

Writing & Worldbuilding

Cutter Slade, former soldier and protagonist of the first Outcast, is brought back to alien planet Adelpha by a mysterious force believed to be the “Yods”, intangible deities that chose him as the Ulukai: a sort-of messianic figure of local lore, destined to lead the tribes towards their true destiny.

From this rather unoriginal and quite literal deus-ex-machina, you’ll then be introduced to a series of characters that are rarely remarkable, be they friends or foes. Exceptions apply, however, don’t expect a roster of well-written and memorable characters, because you won’t find them here. Slade himself is the prime example of a one-sided, flat gung-ho military man with a marked tiredness/depression in the way he acts – in part justified by his own lore.

The plot of Outcast – A New Beginning is the emaciated, more-magic version of James Cameron’s Avatar, where a bunch of pre-industrial tribes manage to stay head-to-head with a space-faring, militaristic opponent through the raw power of friendship. Magical! Is it a good story though? No, it’s not; reason why I watched a TV series on a second screen half the time during cutscenes.

The worldbuilding is quite excellent: Adelpha really does a good job of conveying the ambience of an alien world, particularly in the amount of detail and density of its environments. Lush forests, deserts and stormy mountain peaks are all available and well-diversified, while villages have been minutely crafted with great care – also the reason why performance in those places is absolutely terrible even on top-tier hardware.

Exploration & Secrets

You’ll explore Adelpha with the aid of your integrated jetpack, which will at first enable to boost above ground, and later on also to glide in the air, jump multiple times and gain altitude quickly, enhancing Slade’s mobility tremendously.

Anytime, anywhere fast travel is available after you repair the Stargate-like portals called Daokas scattered in the world, which also double as “spotting towers” to highlight nearby POIs. The world of Outcast – A New Beginning is extensive in size and full of secondary encounters, secret collectibles, respawning enemies and harvestable materials to either sell or use in crafting and upgrades.

It’s enjoyable to navigate this stunning-looking, alien dimension; an attentive eye and curious attitude will often be rewarded positively. A system of markers and trackers ensures a good amount of guidance for quests and tasks, although sometimes you’ll have to find things on your own, which is good. There are well-hidden collectibles that are either related to achievements, or have tangible rewards such as unique weapon modules if enough are collected and brought to specific NPCs.

Combat System & Bosses

Slade will at first be equipped with a relatively weak energy pistol, and then gain more tools of the “trade” both from Human technology and custom-crafted Talan weaponry, other than straight-up magical powers from the local gods. While these are all interesting in their own accord, skills and Talan-made gizmos aren’t as good as plain old firepower: the weapon customization system allows you to combine modules to grant traits to your otherwise generic guns.

Split shots, electrified bullets, ricochets, explosives, charged sniper beams – all of it is there and can be combined together for maximum lethality – too much in fact, since some broken OP combos can obliterate enemies in seconds… as if the game wasn’t easy enough already. Your foes deal considerable damage, but their AI patterns are slow, predictable and clunky and their aim is garbage – anyone remotely decent at shooters will make quick work of them all. Dodge, take cover and headshot your way to victory. You’ll also be able to improve the Talan gizmos for better effects by completing specific tasks, too bad they’re all underpowered trash you’ll never use.

Bosses in Outcast – A New Beginning aren’t much better, since half of them are the same copy-pasted “elite” enemy, while the others are unremarkable weaklings you will probably steamroll if you did a bit of secondary stuff beforehand. The final boss is tough but just doesn’t cut it against a fully upgraded Slade and all his magic.

Progression & Crafting

Slade’s guns, shield, melee implement and jetpack can be substantially upgraded with Helidium variants, colored gemstones gained from enemies, the environment, missions, chests, and tasks. Pretty much anything. The more stuff you do, the more upgrades you’ll be able to unlock and, in turn, gain more mobility, better resistances, more module slots to make custom weapons, and additional skills that allow completing previously (almost) impossible challenges and tasks.

The crafting system allows using foraged ingredients like meats, herbs and enemy parts in making potions and consumables – something I didn’t find very useful at any point since it’s really not worth the trouble, the basic healing fruits and plants will do just fine for the few times you’ll ever be in a pinch, if any.

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