Outcast – A New Beginning – Remember in 1999, at the dawn of 3D graphics technology and NVIDIA was still just a small shrimp in the technology industry, not a giant with the largest market capitalization like today, at that time Outcast was one of the real “hardware killers”, 5 years ahead of its time, before famous names like Half-Life 2 , DOOM 3 or Far Cry that challenged many generations of graphics cards.

Compared to dozens of other 3D graphics games released at the same time, such as Final Fantasy VIII or Resident Evil 3: Nemesis , which used pre-rendered 2D backgrounds and “square” 3D models with few polygons, Outcast was a true graphical phenomenon, overwhelming players with a colorful open world, bringing players to experiences that were unprecedented up to that time.

Perhaps the most worthy competitor to Outcast ‘s “true 3D” scale and “open environment” at that time was the game from Quantic Dream, Omikron: The Nomad Soul .

However, following the usual pattern of a “hardware killer” game, when few gamers had PC configurations strong enough to “support” the game series, after the second part was released in 2001 and did not meet financial expectations, the game series was discontinued and then fell into oblivion.

It wasn’t until 23 years later, last February, that the sequel to the game series was officially released to gamers with the name Outcast – A New Beginning .

In the hands of a new “owner” ( THQ Nordic ), will the Outcast game series really be “revived” as the name “A new beginning” suggests?

Let’s find out with MarkGame through the following review, guys!

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Preserve core values!

Although it impressed players as a “hardware killer” game at that time, in fact, the Outcast version released in 1999 was a successful action-adventure game, voted “Best Adventure Game of 1999” by GameSpot and Computer Gaming World magazine (which closed in 2006). In it, players can freely explore the fascinating world of Adelpha, with carefully constructed stories that bring an overwhelming adventure in a three-dimensional space that was unprecedented at that time.

25 years after the first version, Outcast – A New Beginning has lost its halo of a “hardware killer”, when a series of recently released games have invested both in technology and money to bring a more realistic and sparkling world, such as Cyberpunk 2077 is the first game to apply “Path Tracing” rendering technology (an upgrade of Ray Tracing), using artificial intelligence to upgrade the quality of light processing, bringing more realistic images than ever.

Even the space setting and freedom to carry out missions have been exploited by many other games such as the Mass Effect or Starfield series , making many of the advantages of this game series become “outdated”, no longer having enough value to “cause WOW” for gamers like what the first part of the game series did.

That’s why the game development team at Appeal Studios , a Belgium-based studio with veteran members who built the first part of the game series, chose to focus on building a world of Adelpha with more new elements, a new storyline and a new gameplay with incredible care, creating an “engaging” attraction for the game as players solve one mission after another.

Right from the beginning of the game, Outcast – A New Beginning has “puzzled” veteran fans of the game series when it brought Cutter Slade, the main character who appeared in the first game, to a majestic temple that is somewhat in the style of the Tomb Raider game series , with a series of questions such as is this place really Adelpha? Why has it been decades and our guy is still young and healthy? And above all, is this a real world?

The main game has many improvements compared to the first part of the series, allowing gamers to easily explore the vast world of Adelpha much more easily than before, such as the jump suit that is similar to the armor in the game Anthem , the wingsuit that helps players glide from high points like in Just Cause or the flying mounts like in Horizon: Forbidden West .

The expansion of the game space is also a challenge for the game development team, especially in the way of setting up the context and world, one of the most important elements of a science fiction game because it requires both abstract thinking and the most specific imaginative elements from architecture, to culture, language, and other social factors.

To a certain extent, the world of Adelpha in Outcast – A New Beginning appears to the player extremely impressive with extremely high detail, with many elements that can be considered deeply inspired by movies and games with science fiction themes in recent years.

The game designers from Appeal Studios have been very clever in incorporating many new elements into the existing background from the first version, sketching a primitive but mysterious Adelpha society with clearly hierarchical power structures, somewhat similar to the tribal structure in Horizon Zero Dawn that is gradually collapsing before the invasion of human forces carrying with them advanced weapons and modern space technology, creating a breathtaking contrasting picture that we once felt from the most popular movie of all time, Avatar , by talented director James Cameron.

The world of Adelpha in Outcast – A New Beginning appears before the eyes of the player extremely impressive with extremely high detail.

In that context, the plot is presented very smoothly through embedded missions, with natural guidance. The game designers even cleverly separate the levels of missions through the social hierarchy that players communicate with, or the ability to “learn” the native language to open up new missions.

Although there is also a method of “distributing” trivial missions in the style of Far Cry 6 , the plot and social stratification of Outcast – A New Beginning have strung them together into a clear and coherent plot, enough for you to slowly explore the world of Adelpha and answer the questions posed from the beginning of the game.

Of course, with a “trendy” game, the game also integrates many new features such as the ability to upgrade weapons, equipment, or learn new skills, increase strength as well as tactical flexibility to deal with more dangerous areas, more “difficult” opponents, thereby creating the necessary balance between character strength and mission, creating enough challenges to not bring boredom to players like some games that “run out of ideas” in the later stages of the game.

Not only that, each quest has lengthy conversations with many elements described in great detail, somewhat similar to action role-playing games like The Witcher 3 , which can help players easily visualize the context of the quest and link them to the main plot, which may be “tiring” for fans who love the quickness of the action game genre, but is the necessary glue to turn the separate components into a unified whole.

The most outstanding are probably the cinematic animation sequences that overwhelm the player, such as the scene where the native soldiers climb on their mounts and fly up into the sky, creating a highlight in the plot, making the player feel like they are watching an action movie rather than playing an adventure game.

In addition to the storyline that defines the characteristics of the adventure game genre, the action gameplay is also properly invested, although it does not reach the level of intensity of a specialized shooting action game, but it is not a boring “extra dish” like the performance in the puzzle adventure game A Way Out .

In some ways, you’ll feel like you’re back as Master Chief in Halo Infinite , using modern weapons to fight against base after base.

Even some of the bosses are native creatures like the Alpha Garondar earthworm boss or Jack Boerum’s giant mech, which are quite difficult and bring a lot of emotions to the player when you overcome these challenges.

In terms of graphics, although the game does not have the “slickness” of the top blockbuster games with heavy graphics technology to become another “hardware killer” of modern times, Outcast – A New Beginning still shows the careful construction of the game team, creating an overwhelming feeling for players with the game environment, not just simply roughly rendered areas with similar shabby areas as if randomly built from available materials on the game with a similar setting, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora .

You will encounter many different creatures depending on the type of terrain: jungle, desert or sea. Most of them are gentle and somewhat simple like the people of planet Adelpha, but some of them are full of aggression with all kinds of body types, from large like giant dragons to small like hummingbirds…

The “biodiversity” in the game world makes it easy for players to feel that this is a planet with life, not just “dead” areas without any creatures or humans except for computer opponents, making gamers lose interest in exploring like in the world of Just Cause .

The music is also another highlight of this game as all the background music is written by talented composer Lennie Moore.

He has been involved with the Outcast series since the first game in 1999, as his debut in the gaming industry. He has since gone on to work on several other notable titles, including the enhanced soundtracks for Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary and Halo 2: Anniversary, along with several other Star Wars titles .

Therefore, the game’s soundtrack can be said to be “out of the woods” with sequences that bring a sense of vast and heroic space, very common in science fiction movies.

Overall, thanks to the clever use of trendy elements in today’s gameplay, integrating them reasonably with the adventure-based exploration plot, Outcast – A New Beginning brings a smooth experience in every aspect, making it easy for you to enjoy the game without encountering any other problems.

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There is no “breakthrough” point!

Despite providing a smooth experience, Outcast – A New Beginning is not exactly an excellent game, partly because gamers have been “overfed” with science fiction games in recent times, and partly because Appeal Studios itself has been quite “gentle”, if not somewhat conservative, in “borrowing” successful elements from other games/movies and then putting them into a somewhat stereotypical game.

For example, the game’s most successful element is that the story is quite predictable, without any shocking “plot twists” that could change the plot of the story. Even the final “boss fight” has some similarities to the climactic battle at the end of the 2009 movie Avatar , when our hero has to fight a giant Mech.

Secondly, the game’s setting is also quite “poor” when you almost don’t have many weapons that can be used, or this even makes the initial setting in the context of the game about the “invader” WFA somewhat contradictory and “poor”.

Unlike the world of Pandora in Avatar , where the “heavenly people” only established a research outpost with a small group of guards, so their mobilization was somewhat limited, the army invading the world of Adelpha conquered on a large scale by building a series of majestic armed outposts.

But you won’t find any vehicles or heavy weapons other than two basic weapons that you can “mix up” to give different shooting effects. Even for most of the game, your opponents are more threats from the planet Adelpha’s natural environment than invaders from the outside.

This makes the combat of Outcast – A New Beginning, although still quite good, still a bit “inferior” to creating enough excitement for players who have been “pampered” by the action game genre with all kinds of “flavors” in recent years.

Despite providing a smooth experience, Outcast – A New Beginning is not exactly a great game.