Outcast – A New Beginning | PC Review

March 30, 2024 Eric Sandler

If there’s one game that’s never been made, it’s the 3D open world with full flying. Outcast – A New Beginning, developed by Appeal Studios and published by THQ Nordic, is not quite that game, but it certainly does aim high. It gets into the low atmosphere, at least.

Believe it or not, Outcast – A New Beginning is a sequel. And also not. If you never played the original Outcast or its remake Second Contact, fear not! A New Beginning picks up with Cutter Slade appearing on an alien world with convenient amnesia, so he has no more idea of what’s going on than the player. It also doesn’t really tie in that hard to the original game, or at least not enough that you need to play it.

Welcome to the Alien Sandbox

Basically, you’re on the planet Adelpha in another dimension, humans are the evil invaders, and Cutter Slade sets out to help the oppressed Talans and also get back to earth or something. To do this, he has to destroy enemy bases, complete parkour trials, and help the Talans with various chores.

If this sounds familiar, it should. Outcast – A New Beginning is almost a throwback to the open world games of the 2000’s and early 2010’s. The gameplay itself is nothing particularly special: you get a shooty gun and then more shooty guns, various mods to alter your shooty guns in various ways that can be freely swapped around, and lots of targets to shoot with your shooty guns.

Set Phasers to WHEEEEEEE

Where Outcast stands apart is the jetpack. Slade picks one up early in the game, and can use it to dodge attacks and also boost himself straight up at first. Not long after, though, you start unlocking additional abilities such as a glide, fast boosting via ground, and more energy cells so you can get higher and stay up there longer. Chaining all this together gives you amazing verticality, and is much easier than any other open world game. After a few hours in, it’s a simple matter to boost yourself up and then glide over the world to your destination, or use your jump boosts to get up to a high perch to kill enemies. Every upgrade feels impactful, because it gives you more options for movement and map traversal.

It’s the free nature of travel that makes A New Beginning feel more fun than many other titles in the genre. That, and the game’s sense of humor, both in the voice acting and in Slade’s general confusion, shows it clearly doesn’t take itself very seriously. It’s just plain fun to play and experience, even if it doesn’t necessarily stack up to giants in the field.

A Rough Diamond in the Rough

To whit, the game is not perfect. On PC it’s not terribly well optimized, and there were some graphical issues like pop-in on occasion. Probably the funniest bug was one particular cutscene when I returned the first village’s trust icon. As the cutscene began, the music blasted at full volume while the voicework came in barely audible. At one point the music stopped mid-scene, then started blaring again without warning. That pretty much encapsulates Outcast – A New Beginning: a game that’s rough around the edges, but ultimately pretty fun, and pretty funny.

Where it falters the most is the price. It’s $60 USD, and at that price point you could pick up something with a bit more polish and replayability. While it’s certainly an enjoyable experience, it’s hard to justify that price tag. At the end of the day, it’s mostly the humor and jetpack mechanics that save it from being yet another open world game with enemy bases and other random challenges around the map to conquer. If and when it goes on sale, though, Outcast – A New Beginning is a game worth your time and money, if only to go jetpacking around like an alien rocketeer.

To hear me talk more about Outcast – A New Beginning, be sure to listen to the March 27 episode of The Gaming Outsider podcast around the 1:07:04 time stamp.

This review is based on a PC copy of Outcast – A New Beginning provided by Sandbox Strategies for coverage purposes. It is also available on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S.