Outcast - A New Beginning Review (Xbox One)

STAFF REVIEW of Outcast - A New Beginning (Xbox One)

Wednesday, July 10, 2024.
by Adam Dileva

I never got to play the original Outcast, released in 1999, because at the time you needed a pretty beefy PC and graphics card if you really wanted to experience its non-linear open world, not something quite common back then. Its 2017 remaster, oddly named Second Contact, though not a sequel, did come out with a ton of improvements, but it somehow skipped by me once again. Not this time, over two decades later and Outcast has finally received a proper sequel, Outcast – A New Beginning.

Cutter Slade and his dry humor returns to the alien world of Adelpha, and better yet, the original team behind the cult classic has also returned, so you know it’s been created with the right team behind the wheel. Going in blind I really wasn’t sure what to expect, but I came away impressed overall at its lush world and traversal, even if it does fall short in other places.

Cutter Slade, protagonist and hero from the original game, returns again once he is resurrected by the almighty Yods (the native species word for Gods). Returning to find that the Talans have been enslaved and Adelpha is being stripped for its natural resources, Slade will need to figure out what this new threat is and how to stop its robot forces. Slade has made enemies in the past though, and when familiar faces return, they’ll have no problem killing him, and again, and again. It’s a good thing the Yods are merciful and keep resurrecting you when needed.

The overall plot will seem oddly familiar if you’re a fan of the Avatar movies, though aside from just a few characters, there’s none all that memorable, Slade being one of them naturally. The overarching narrative is simple enough to follow, but there’s so many smaller quests, events and optional dialogue along the way that you might sometimes forget what you were initially doing. There’s a number of moments that actually made me chuckle, so there’s some dry humor within if you’re into that, like a great cheesy movie.

The land of Adelpha is quite vast, and you’re going to need to use your jetpack and wingsuit to get around quickly. Starting out as just a way to jump higher, then double and triple jump, your jetpack eventually is like a rocket, able to quickly boost and glide slightly above the ground as you speed your way to your destination. Traversing the world actually became one of my favorite things to do, as it simply feels great to get to the top of a massive tree or mountain and glide across a large section of land freely, reminding me a bit of Just Cause. Once you unlock the ability to truly fly like The Rocketeer, it becomes even better and never becomes stale.

After the opening mission you’re set free in a non-linear world where you can decide how you want to complete story missions. You’ll begin in one town, completing their tasks, eventually branching out to others and then are given the freedom of what order you’d like to complete them. This encourages exploration, and while the world is stunning to look at, there’s little to find outside of each checkpoint and specific point on map where there’s an event to check off the list.

These extra events are worth doing though, as this is how you’ll earn new weapon module upgrades and abilities. That said, it becomes a bit tiresome and they’re all generally the same. Also utilizing similar methods to the way Ubisoft games do, you’ll need to find a portal to show where all these events in an area are, then some are unable to be accessed until you deactivate the shields at another base. This surely does give a lot of content, but it’s the same few events over and over in each area.

You’ll find a portal at each of the main towns, though unable to be used until repaired. There are also a few of them scattered throughout the wilderness, and unlocking these makes fast travel points to quickly get from one area to the next. This is great, but you’ll soon realize that with each quest, you’re simply following the compass from point A to point B, as there’s not much in between in the wild, aside from its beautiful scenery, collectable foliage for potions, and some stray wildlife that will want to attack if you’re too close. Once you realize the majority of the quests are very similar, I just simply fast traveled to the closest point, rocketed over, collected or killed what I needed, then fast travelled back. Those simply looking to get more play time will surely be kept busy for some time, but it became a bit overwhelming midway with a dozen main missions and nearly endless side events to complete.

Slade begins with a simple pistol, small but effective. As you explore the world and clear out certain bases, you’ll find large chests that will give you specific upgrades for your weapons. Combat is quite simplistic, as the enemies are braindead as best, and even on the harder difficulties, you shouldn’t have much issue. Defeat enemies and they’ll drop resources that you’ll automatically pick up once close to where they died.

While I never had to specifically go out and find more ammunition, you can always fall back on powerful melee attacks if you get surrounded. You also have an energy shield to block attacks, but if you engage firefights from far enough, you should be able to defeat enemies before they pose any real threat. You’ll eventually find and unlock a rifle that uses a different type of ammo, so when one gun is empty or overheated, you can swap to the other.

Instead of giving you a bunch of different weapons to carry, Outcast’s way of weapon customization is really interesting and had me experimenting to find my perfect loadout. Completing missions and side events will have Slade find weapon modules. These are used to alter your pistol or rifle in a variety of different ways. With quite a few to select from, I was partial to homing bullets and proxy mines, but there’s plenty of others to choose like spread shots, explosive shots, rapid fire, electric bullets and more. This makes for a lot of different combinations, and you can make some truly overpowered builds if you combine the right mods.

Even further, in your skill tree, you’re able to unlock additional upgrades, allowing for more powerful versions of the mods you own, though you’ll need to spend specific resources to do this, again, earned from combat, missions, and events. The more you do, the more you’ll have to spend and unlock, making Slade more powerful.

There are also upgrades for Slade himself, adding new jetpack skills (get the Wingsuit asap), melee and shield upgrades, and more. While I didn’t use it often, there’s also a crafting component that allows you to turn your gathered plants and meat into more powerful potions. I found the basic resources was more than enough to keep me healed when needed, which is probably why I didn’t spend too much time with the crafting. There’s just enough new abilities, mods, and skill unlocks at a good pace that it feels fresh in new ways as you work on completing Slade’s adventure.

The land of Adelpha is absolutely stunning, especially the higher up you are and just start to wing glide across to your destination. It truly does look like an alien planet and I stopped more than a few times to simply take in the vistas to snap a few screenshots. The world is bright and colorful, full of plenty of details in its dense environments. For how good the backdrop and world looks, it does have graphical issues, even on the Xbox Series X. There’s a slight lag of texture pop in when cutscenes begin, and I’ve seen one NPC’s necklace bouncing around for no reason like they were at a rave. Models are passable at best, even for the main characters, and animations can be quite stiff, especially the poor lip syncing.

As for its audio, Outcast’s original composter, Lennie Moore, returns and creates an absolutely wonderful soundtrack, changing based on what’s happening, if you’re in combat, or zipping across a lake on your jetpack. Voice acting is decent for the main characters, as Slade’s dry humor comes across like a series of great dad jokes, though secondary character performances are quite hit or miss.

You know that B-movie that not many people enjoy, but you just absolutely love it for whatever reason? Outcast - A New Beginning reminds me of something like that. It may not have a AAA budget, and it’s certainly clunky in some places, but I enjoy its 90’s vibe even with its flaws. A beautiful world to explore and enough to keep you busy for quite some time, even if it is busywork much of the time, I’m glad I finally got to have an adventure with Cutter Slade and hope for another in the future.

** Outcast - A New Beginning was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**

Overall: 7.7 / 10
Gameplay: 7.5 / 10
Visuals: 8.0 / 10
Sound: 7.5 / 10

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