Solid your eye over the unique Outcast from 1999 as we speak, and you will find a world that is extra summary than alien. Hazy, nearly block color textures are stretched to breaking level over terrain that appears prefer it’s been pulled and poked by a toddler sculpting in putty slime, whereas its solid of beige, three-fingered Talans are so inflexible that they’d all be reigning champions on the native robotic dance-off. Comprehensible, given the period during which is was made, besides – what a distinction 25 years make. Even after 2017’s remake glow-up with Outcast: Second Contact, A New Starting’s model of Adelpha is a lush and verdant paradise, with treetops hovering over your head, and mountains requiring a number of triple or quadruple jetpack jumps to traverse. It is no Avatar: Frontiers Of Pandora, admittedly, however it leans in very a lot the identical course, punching your eyeballs with such vivid, major colors that you’re going to really feel enticed to discover each inch of it.
A disgrace, then, that each one its visible splendour quantities to is little greater than an empty husk full of open world busy work that already felt drained and completed ten years in the past. Its non-linear method to storytelling stays intact, letting you deal with the quests and issues of its quite a few village settlements in any order you want, however even this has been boiled right down to tedious checklists of fetch quests, escort missions and capturing up the identical identikit facility one after one other. Topping off this deadly combo is returning protagonist Cutter Slade, whose macho military dude dial remains to be set firmly to cringey wise-cracking and patronising stereotypes. A brand new starting this ain’t.
Regardless of dropping the two from its identify in an try to attract in newcomers, that is nonetheless very a lot a direct sequel to the unique, with the plot instantly assuming you recognize what a Talan is and why Cutter Slade thinks he is a giant deal round these elements. The result’s off-putting and abrasive, although in all honesty, everyone seems to be such a nasty hold on this recreation that it is laborious to care about what anybody’s acquired occurring right here, not to mention Slade or the Talan he is making an attempt to save lots of from extinction. Because it seems, people are those oppressing the aliens this time (that previous chestnut), and shock horror, they’re principally all horrible. You do not ever really feel too unhealthy about turning their largely robotic military into piles of scrap metallic, although, as the primary villain of the piece – a bald and pasty military basic who at one level utters the precise line, “If we will not train you English, what good are you?” to a captured Talan – is such a broad and cartoonish caricature of an ignorant colonial boomer that you just actively need to wipe each final smug wrinkle off his face with the enterprise finish of your laser rifle.
He is such a colossal turd, actually, that it makes one of many two major aims you are working towards right here really feel completely redundant, as your major objectives are to each set the stage for a once-in-a-lifetime intercourse orgy for the Talans (to allow them to safe the lineage of their race and never get immediately worn out the second you cease listening to them), whereas additionally strengthening the defences of their major village stronghold. The latter I perceive, however mates, this isn’t the time for peace and love and infants. There are extra essential issues at hand, like bursting boomer boy’s spaceship like a balloon.
Like Avatar, lots of the duties required to finish this pair of overarching aims feels very very similar to white saviour hand-wringing, with Slade turning into an unstoppable one-man military hell-bent on stepping in to repair each final drawback he comes throughout, often by capturing every part inside a ten-mile radius. Sometimes he’ll bask in some light-hearted, if mildly janky yak herding, escorting animals from one village to a different (although not with out murdering incoming predators seeking to get a recent slice of dinobird drumstick), and gathering particular feathers/flowers/different miscellaneous objects (whereas additionally typically murdering something standing in his method), however the extra villages you start to assist, the extra these tedious variations on a theme begin to repeat themselves. As a substitute of delivering animals, you are tempting large bugs down from the mountains; as a substitute of herding yaks, you are beautiful sea creatures by chasing after after which jetpacking over them.
They’re all acquainted reskins of quests you have accomplished one million instances earlier than, although the best way your quest log funnels all of them into each other does at the least give the impression that they do all serve some wider function. It additionally does a fairly good job of at all times placing extra villages in your method to hold your quest log well-fed, and there have been temporary moments of satisfaction to be gained from seeing how a few of them loop again into each other additional down the road.
Factor is, whereas its menus have a whiff of administration recreation about them, the entire system is so beholden to ticking packing containers in a particular order that it turns into nothing greater than a giant, inter-connected guidelines of duties to finish. This isn’t a recreation about spinning a number of totally different plates in a number of totally different villages, and even quests that ask you to stockpile sure assets seemingly by no means want topping up as soon as they have been deposited. As soon as every quest was full, I did not have to consider it ever once more, and it is wholly missing that sense of permanence and evolution that makes different RPG sprawls really feel so alive with alternative.
It doesnt assist that its moment-to-moment box-ticking is made infinitely worse by the laboriously overstuffed conversations it’s important to endure with every respective quest-giver, and you will be mashing that skip button as quickly as you clap eyes on it. The dialogue is merely a way to an finish in A New Starting, because it has no bearing in your relationship with the Talan, nor does it convey any significant info (flavour or in any other case) past what will get parped out on the finish of it in your quest goal.
This may need been totally different had Enchantment Studios not seemingly binned the much-touted language system they talked about in the course of the run-up to the sport’s launch. As I understood it, this could have seen Slade progressively study the Talan’s native language as he spent extra time with them, strengthening his bond to particular person communities alongside the best way. In actuality, nevertheless, Slade is hit with a mind-opening gentle beam throughout the first hour, after which he can converse fluently with everybody for the remainder of the sport. It is disappointing, to say the least, although given how a lot of the dialogue made me wince, it is most likely for the very best that we did not find yourself excavating it phrase by phrase.
Fight, too, feels trivially straightforward, making even Outcast’s extra action-packed encounters and facility takedowns really feel leaden and tepid – and that is earlier than you realise they’re all constructed from the identical clutch of similar hall templates in barely remixed configurations. The third-person capturing is serviceable, however Slade’s selection of laser pistol and rifle each lack any sense of heft or influence when pulling the set off, and your enemies are all such dullards you can decide all of them off from a distance with out barely stepping foot within the place. Certainly, if you end up partaking with its additionally fairly lacklustre melee punch-ups, one thing’s gone mistaken, particularly when the sport’s thought of upping the problem is to easily throw extra of every part at you directly.
Alas, managing its rising crowds is equally monotonous. Slade solely know tips on how to go on the offensive in A New Starting, which implies battles merely descend into drawn-out stand-offs the place you are taking potshots whereas darting out and in of doorways to remain simply outdoors your prey’s patrol zone. There are upgrades and modules and further gubbins to gather to make your weapons extra highly effective, however I hardly ever felt the necessity to really make use of them. These robots are that a lot of a pushover.
Actually, although, it is Outcast’s imaginative and prescient of what a modern-day, non-linear open world Adelpha might appear to be that is so disappointing right here. Whereas the unique was one of many extra experimental and revolutionary video games of its day, A New Starting feels just like the leftovers from Ubisoft’s reducing room flooring. When you’re not activating fast-travel factors, you are bombarded by glowing orbs main you to particular upgrade-point-puking vegetation, parkour challenges in temples to spice up your well being bar, and destroying ominous pink spore outbreaks to increase the time of your solely ineffective slow-mo energy. And, in fact, there are these quite a few aforementioned outposts, convoys and drones to take down.
Certain, it manages to eschew the previous waypoint towers, however as you push again the fog of warfare by merely traipsing from one finish of the island to the opposite, the top consequence remains to be the identical barrage of icons to filter. All the things else is barren in between, giving little impetus to stray from the overwhelmed path. You may jetpack previous the extra vicious native wildlife (who serve no profit apart from to savage your well being bar between fetch quests), and when you might often wish to cease to prime up your ammo by punching the corresponding coloured-rock, or scavenge a therapeutic plant (assuming the sport recognises the button immediate, which it hardly ever did whereas I used to be in movement), there’s hardly ever any want to take action when the robots you are blowing up are so beneficiant with their merchandise drops.
Finally, it simply makes Outcast: A New Starting really feel very drained and generic – an open world which may have impressed a decade in the past, however now comes throughout as a recreation each out of time and out of favour. A small phrase on the sport’s efficiency, too, earlier than I shut, which (politely) runs like arse. Except for frequent stutters when shifting to new areas at velocity, there have been additionally moments the place the body price had a full-on meltdown, descending right into a farcical slideshow. Publishers THQ Nordic have assured me that optimisation patches are incoming for launch day, however oof, the evaluate construct was not a fairly sight at instances, lemme inform ya. Even with out these efficiency points, although, Outcast: A New Starting has larger, extra basic issues mendacity at its coronary heart. It might lastly appear to be the Adelpha you dreamed about 25 years in the past, however this weary sequel has by no means felt extra alienating.
This evaluate was primarily based on a evaluate construct of the sport supplied by publishers THQ Nordic.
