- Publisher: THQ Nordic
- Release Date: Mar 15, 2024
- Also On: PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X
- Critic score
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- By date
- Unscored
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Mar 22, 2024Appeal Studios is far from having everything worked out perfectly. However, Outcast - A New Beginning turned out to be quite an original game, which is able to captivate with its old-fashioned story about a hitman who explores a beautiful mysterious world, albeit made in Ubisoft style.
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Mar 19, 2024We are not at the mythical levels of the first episode, it is evident. Outcast – A New Beginning is a sequel without infamy and without praise, net of a nostalgia effect which inevitably has its weight but cannot justify every shortcoming. Strengths and weaknesses are almost equal when it's time to take stock, appreciating it or not depends a lot on how much importance you give to both. This is one of those cases in which the price doesn't play in the work's favor, however with a discount it might be worth giving it a chance because there is only one Cutter Slade.
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Mar 15, 2024One of those rare games that can feel underwhelming and fun at the same time. There is a lot of good stuff in Outcast 2, like the incredible music, cool jetpack mechanics and a main character that we have really missed over the years. But Appeal bites off more than they can chew here: The world is vast and beautiful, but offers very little aside from monotonous side activities. There are no roleplaying elements to speak of, the enemies are boring and on top of that, the combat feels shallow and stuck in the past. The story however really has its moments, the villages are incredibly charming and there are plenty of fun conversations to be had. Is it a great game? Sadly, no. But we enjoyed it nonetheless.
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Mar 15, 2024A pleasant return to the roots of open-world adventures, which is as captivating as it is frustrating. Outcast: A New Beginning can be beautiful, but with clumsy animations. It adeptly weaves tasks together while filling its map with repetitive hostile camps. However, the important thing is that through its good action and brisk movement across the picturesque planet, you'll completely forget about its simplistic storyline and other flaws.
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Mar 14, 2024Outcast: A New Beginning revives the universe of its predecessor with new adventures, offering deep storytelling and engaging gameplay, albeit hindered by outdated mechanics and limited production values.
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Mar 14, 2024Outcast: A New Beginning is a game filled with ups and downs: on one hand, the freedom of movement granted by the jetpack and the speed at which you traverse Adelpha is exhilarating and somewhat refreshing, especially compared to many open-world games where even climbing over walls requires dedicated animations to consume time and inflate playtime; on the other hand, the inevitable burden of repetitiveness in some of the activities offered somewhat hampers the experience.
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Mar 14, 2024Outcast – 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.
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Mar 14, 2024Outcast – A New Beginning is a fun time and something fans of the first game may enjoy. It has some issues, but it's worth experiencing and protecting Adelpha from anyone who wishes to destroy it.
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Mar 14, 2024By default, Outcast is not all that challenging. I turned up the difficulty to hard after the first few fights didn’t provide much resistance, and while I almost turned it down again halfway through the campaign when I died multiple times on one tough fight (you just respawn nearby so you can whittle them down with persistence, but your consumable health potions are toast) it turned out I was just one weapon upgrade away from turning things dramatically back in my favor. The only times I died after that were when I neglected to keep track of my health items, since there are very few other options for healing on the go if you aren’t well stocked.
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Mar 14, 2024There's fun to be had in the shooting and gliding, but Outcast: A New Beginning is simply stretched a little too thin.
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Mar 14, 2024Outcast: A New Beginning offers an alien open world full of small, interesting stories. Too Little innovation and a humor that takes some getting used to, are contrasted by surprisingly fun and dynamic battles, entertaining missions and a pleasant flow when it comes to exploring the captivating alien world.
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Game World Navigator MagazineAug 23, 2024Middle-aged Cutter just doesn’t cut it as a hero. Everything about him screams that he’s old, he’s tired, and instead of going on an adventure, he would’ve preferred to spend the day playing Farming Simulator. [Issue#264,p.54]
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Mar 27, 2024A pleasing world and satisfying jetpack exploration aside, Cutter Slade's return is rarely out of this world.
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Jun 11, 2024A quarter of a century is a long time to develop a sequel to a cult classic and Outcast - A New Beginning certainly shows this in its outdated approach to mechanics, animation, and technical development. The sequel certainly contains a list of non-negligible shortcomings, however, its magical charm that combines a world similar to the Avatar movies and player freedom best known from the Just Cause series overshines many of them! The undying love of the series’ enthusiasts has respawned Cutter Slade for another glide across the stunning world of Adelpha.
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Mar 25, 2024Unlike the first Outcast game back in 1999, A New Beginning lacks characters and has not much to offer in terms of new ideas, mostly copying what we've already seen in standard modern open-world games.
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Mar 20, 2024The game’s star, Cutter Slade, is a wise-cracking jerk who’s trying to get back to his daughter while also apparently being the prophecied Chosen One. That doesn’t make any of it good, but if you’re a connoisseur of that very specific genre, there’s a reasonably good chance you’re going to love Outcast – A New Beginning. But again, appeals to a certain kind of nostalgia aside, it’s worth emphasizing that Outcast – A New Beginning is not a good game. Its predecessor may have been groundbreaking for 3D open-world games, but we’re definitely not getting that this time around.
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Mar 17, 2024While 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.
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Mar 14, 2024Outcast A New Beginning offers sometimes interesting alien settings, the backdrops to an overall enjoyable story, albeit lacking in peaks of excellence. In addition to the technical stumbles, the game combines cutscenes and dubbing that aren't always up to par, repetitive tasks that are generally very simple in structure, as well as battles that lose their bite due to the limits of the AI that moves our opponents. Furthermore, the progression thrives on phlegmatic rhythms, which do not go well with the fun exploratory possibilities offered by the use of the jetpack. In other words, this new Cutter Slade adventure could have done more.
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Mar 31, 2024Perhaps Outcast: A New Beginning was a bit too ambitious for the return of the classic IP, but even with its huge flaws there are still a lot of good things that are worthy of your attention.
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Mar 14, 2024Outcast – 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.
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Mar 25, 2024With movement and combat upgrades, Outcast – A New Beginning eventually comes close to being a decent open-world shooter, but terrible fetch quests, bland activities, tech issues, and narrative gaffes mean that the colorful world of Adelpha does not bear enough fruit.
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Mar 14, 2024Outcast - A New Beginning is a missed opportunity, abandoning the unique elements of its predecessor for a conventional open-world design that doesn't work well. With uninspired open-world exploration, clunky movement, lackluster combat, and mediocre quest design, it's a hard sell for everyone but Cutter Slade's biggest fans who wish to know how the character's story continues, as there are far superior titles on the market that have executed similar concepts much more effectively.
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Mar 14, 2024Outcast: A New Beginning does its best to invoke a sense of wonder as you jetpack 4 feet off of the ground in an occasionally beautiful alien world. Weak writing, terrible performance, and repetitive quest design work together to make it a dour experience in the end.
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Mar 14, 2024Technically, artistically and script-wise, we've seen much better elsewhere. All the same, Outcast: A New Beginning is not unpleasant to play.
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Mar 14, 2024For me, Outcast: A New Beginning was really a tug-of-war between “it’s fun,” and “it’s driving me crazy.” While some features stood out to me, like the jetpack and weapon modules, they really couldn’t make up for the lackluster characters, a map that was just too big, and bugs that ruin the experience. Fans of the franchise may want to give it a try to compare to the classic experience as it’s undoubtedly a step up in terms of mechanics. However, it’s not necessarily something I would want to play again myself, which lowers my rating for the game overall, and honestly, restricts me from recommending it to others.
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Mar 14, 2024Between its bugs and its busywork, Outcast – A New Beginning does feel a tad dated. But it’s charmed us with its characters, combat and a world that, thanks in part to your jetpack, is a joy to roam. [Review in Progress]
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Mar 14, 2024Ultimately, it just makes Outcast: A New Beginning feel very tired and generic - an open world that might have impressed a decade ago, but now comes across as a game both out of time and out of favour. A small word on the game's performance, too, before I close, which (politely) runs like arse. Aside from frequent stutters when moving to new areas at speed, there were also moments where the frame rate had a full-on meltdown, descending into a farcical slideshow. Publishers THQ Nordic have assured me that optimisation patches are incoming for launch day, but oof, the review build was not a pretty sight at times, lemme tell ya. Even without these performance issues, though, Outcast: A New Beginning has bigger, more fundamental problems lying at its heart. It may finally look like the Adelpha you dreamed about 25 years ago, but this weary sequel has never felt more alienating.