Outcast: A New Beginning Reviews
Fun gameplay, an intriguing story, and a beautiful world is waiting for you at Adelpha. This is how you do a remake right.
It’s taken 25 years, but thanks to Outcast – A New Beginning we finally have a sequel to Outcast. And, in a tremendous bit of irony, where the first game was a look into the future of gaming, this new one feels a lot more like a look back – or, if you want to be a little less polite about it, Outcast – A New Beginning feels like a relic from a bygone era.
Outcast – A New Beginning holds an undeniable amount of allure despite being an extremely janky and overpriced double-A game. It offers an interesting world with a mix of old-school charm and modern gameplay mechanics. The jetpack traversal is addictive and the weapon modding system is refreshing. However, it’s clear this game will definitely not appeal to everyone, even if you’re a fan of the 1999 original.
Regardless of how different Outcast: A New Beginning might have tuned out; it’d never have upped the original classic. That’s not necessarily a bad thing considering how far video games have come since Cutter Slade initially graced our screens. A New Beginning fully embraces its B-movie vibes to deliver a fun if somewhat basic gameplay loop devoid of many of the modern open-world bloat. However, THQ Nordic dropped the ball when it came to the pricing of the game. Slash the price by 20 dollars and there’s a pretty fun experience to be had here.
Outcast - A New Beginning offers a mix of science fiction and curious fantasy, providing an immersive gaming experience in a vast and visually arresting open world. However, its approach is quite dated, especially due to the excessive amount of repetitive activities that can make progression tedious and an uninspired script.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
While there are things that work in its favor, Outcast: A New Beginning ultimately feels like any other open-world game you could play this year or have played years ago. It retains the charm of the original and further explores the world of the Talan in unique and odd ways, but how you go about doing that doesn’t feel as revolutionary as it did back in 1999.
When I read that Outcast was one of the games that helped pioneer the open-world genre, I was impressed! But that is to say, this game seems like it would have thrived back in the day. Nowadays, we have way too many open-world games, and this one doesn't seem impressive unless you loved the first and wanted a sequel. It's a shame, as the world of Adelpha is beautiful, and some of the creature designs look cool, but it falls short everywhere else, in my opinion.
Outcast – A New Beginning came as a surprise as one of the releases for 2024. Although Appeal hinted at the sequel at certain points, it never caught my attention until now, of course. The graphics, lore, and story are pretty much settled in the Adelpha universe, and fluent gameplay pushes you to learn more about the story of natives and Cutter himself.
Outcast - A New Beginning unfortunately lacks many aspects needed to revitalize this cult classic for the modern day. With an archaic gameplay loop and middling action, it’s not quite the follow-up to a revolutionary experience that fans may way. Although some may enjoy a return to Adelpha, and there’s quality to be found in exploration, this is an open world game that fails to hit the mark.
Outcast – A New Beginning has endless potential, and it’s a pretty solid game to begin with, but it also needs some work before it really shines. There’s already a great story, a beautiful open world to explore, and an interesting combat system, and let’s not forget about the fully voiced world, but a little bit more polish would do wonders for this release.
Outcast – A New Beginning features dated storytelling, poor writing, and an overliance on tropes we’ve all seen a thousand times by now. If none of that matters to you, however, you’re in for a pretty ok gameplay experience, with some unique mechanics and freedom that thankfully allows you to bypass a lot of the game’s storytelling, no matter how confidently it seems to throw it in your face.
Has the 25-year wait been worth it? Well, it depends on what players are looking for. Fans of the first game will most likely be impressed if they’re hunting for a more modern take on the Outcast formula. In contrast, open-world vets might see this as a decent, yet generic outing on an Avatar-like planet.
Outcast: A New Beginning scores with its huge freedom by exploring the world, gaining progress and solving quests in a more or less free order. The humour and the stylish-fantastic graphics are also standing on the bright side, even if some annoying bugs and performance issues do some harm to the strong atmosphere. The bottom line is that A New Beginning is a distinct rise of quality compared to its predecessor in mostly any aspect. But this is not enough for a general recommendation. But if you like the original or the remake from 2017, Outcast: A New Beginning is worth buying.
Review in German | Read full review
"Outcast A New Beginning" is recommended for anyone who likes to explore beautiful worlds and doesn't mind primarily working through checklists. There's a lot to see, even more to shoot down and the action really pops. The game doesn't take itself too seriously. Slade and the Talans fool around too much for that and I recommend you do the same. Then you can definitely have fun with "Outcast A New Beginning".
Review in German | Read full review
You will like Outcast: a new beginning if you are one of those who played the original adventure, it will be full of nostalgia and memories. If you want to play a game with a well-crafted culture and background, this is your place.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Outcast's return hasn't been as big as fans of the original had hoped. Where the game excels is the world and the ability to explore with your jetpack, but that's where the fun ends. Being able to personalize the weapons with the modules of your choice is nice, but on the other hand, the combat itself is not very spectacular. Add to that the bad jokes, the dramatic writing, the boring quests and the technical problems and you quickly end up with a very mediocre game. Outcast – A New Beginning falls short on almost all points, so you actually get bored after a few hours. Fans have had to wait 25 years for a worthy successor, but with A New Beginning they will be disappointed.
Review in Dutch | Read full review
The joy of Outcast – A New Beginning comes from the freedom of its nonlinear concept.
Outcast – A New Beginning presents an exciting adventure into the planet of Adelpha. While the innovative combat and environmental interactions are fun, the game is too similar to other open-world RPGs to truly stand out. Exploring Adelpha in its entirety is also challenging because several bugs hamper your progress, sometimes even crashing your game. The game may not break the barrier into greatness, but you can still easily have a good time if you look past the flaws.
The first game was neat for it’s time, and the remake breathed new life into the series. While I’m not sure we needed a sequel, there’s some really neat ideas, quests, systems, and ways of traversing I haven’t quite experienced. There’s clearly a lot of secrets to uncover and things to do in this open-world adventure we’ve seen before, but in a new way. This really feels like a throwback game from a different era mixed with new ideas. While not every component of Outcast – A New Beginning comes together the way it should, it’s still very entertaining and captivating.
In essence, Outcast: A New Beginning can be characterized as a game brimming with exceptionally promising ideas yet suffering from dismal execution.