izigame.me

Just finished the game and almost feel physically ill.
This is the complete reversion and Antithesis of everything that made the original Outcast so great.
You can't find a bigger fan of the original Outcast than me (just look at my username) and it is my most favorite game of all time. I have preached about it to everyone I know for the past 25 years since I played the original and it has followed me like a dead lover that can't be replaced by anything else as nothing compares to it. And while that game is still ahead of many games even today with features that still no other game has replicated this sequel rips all that out of it to instead take everything that is wrong with games today to cram that into one single package.
It looks and sounds like the original at times, but it is like the Leaderface ripping the skin off a corpse and stuffing it with straw while all the soul and essence is long gone from that husk.
In the original Outcast you where dropped in an alien world that immersed you into it like no other and it felt magical, dynamic and like a REAL ADVENTURE with a sense of internal logic and explanation for every feature and game element where you had to find your way by talking to its inhabitants and learning about the world and its interesting lore. It truly felt like a genuine adventure where you where exploring a living breathing mysterious alien world.

In the sequel all that is gone and it is the most bland generic cookie cutter low IQ handholding game you can find with the same tired mmo style dull formula we have seen a thousand times before. Just disconnect your brain completely while the drool stirs down from the side of your mouth and follow that breadcrumb "magic arrow" to its next destination. The game could essentially play itself if you could just program it to follow the marker. You could skip every single conversation in the game and it would not matter as you don't need to actually learn or think in any way. Just be dragged by the hand like a child with the "quest" panel plastered on the screen to "kill x amount of this enemy" or "pick x amount of that plant". Or do some stupid isolated nonsensical minigame that feels ripped out of a mobile game. Again while the original game felt real, logical and immersive this does everything to throw all that out the window and feels artifical and fake at every turn. Like everything is just a theme park version of Adelpha where you fly to the 25:th iteration of the same dull task that you have done innumerable times before doing some parkour race with glowing lights or fighting in the same copy paste bases that you have done before. It is the most lazy filler "quests" and activities you can think off and if you have played any number of games you have done the exact same thing to death untold times before. Then you enter a city and go to the static signposts NPC with big "!" signs over their heads. Again it just reeks of fake and artificial with zero inclination of even trying to feel immersive. Compare these NPC:s and "AI" that behaves as signposts to the original which still 25 years later has features that not even new games have. You could ask NPC:s for the location of other NPC:s and they would tell you where they saw them last, or even point at them if they are close. They would not want to gossip about other NPC:s if that NPC actually was near them and if you talk to a Talan other Talans will often stop and eavesdrop etc. And conversations could even be interrupted by enemies mid dialogue if they got to close. Everything was made to feel real, immersive, dynamic and authentic. This time it is the complete opposite and to call this even a "downgrade" in terms of these system would be an insult.
Speaking of the Talans they don't even look like the original design where they actually looked alien, now they look more like humans in rubber suits. Even the dialogue and voices often sounds really off and is filled with inconsistencies where they sometimes use words that does not fit at all to how they normally speak. Some use words like, "dude" and "cool" and even use some of the human expressions that normally they would take litterary and not understand like "busting my balls" or "taking a raincheck". It all feels sloppy and not at all as involving, interesting or consistent like the original. Many times the dialogue like the rest of the game feels like it is full of pointless filler. And while the original also had a big dose of humour it felt fitting while here often the Talans come across as cartoonish and silly. Like something out of a kids show.
If there is anything positive I can say about the game it would be that the graphics and environment are actually quite beautiful. The environment is lush and has a great deal of verticality. I do think things look a bit too colorful and cartoonish and more like something out of the Avatar than the original Outcast that felt more gloomy, unique and mysterious, and some of the Talan buildings also look "off" to me somehow like they are not as thought out and consistent with the original style and Talan culture of that game, but it still looks nice to look at and if the rest of the game actually was faithful to the original I would be content with this new direction. Though the vast environment also makes me sad since it rubs in all the wasted potential. I imagine how it would be like to actually explore this world if the gameplay and immersion was even anything close to the original. But there is zero purpose to even exploring the world as all you have to do is look for the next "map marker" to fly to and everything else is just a fake purposeless backdrop to fill with dull spoon feed copy paste filler content.
I have waited 25 years for this and it feels sad to think now that I wished this game was never made. It taints and corrupts everything that was so great and special about the original game. Replacing it with the complete opposite of what made that game so magical with the most tired generic Ubisoft style mmo gameplay there is. It is truly sad beyond belief.
I don't know if this was the nail in the coffin for Outcast. The original game recieved great reviews (about 90% on metacritic) and I know many people who played it still also put it at the top of their all time favorites, and the only reason it did not get even higher scores was because of some issues with bugs and possibly also the voxel graphics (which I absolutely love). Unfortunately it did not sell well enough but it had nothing to do with the quality of the game which was stellar and probably more a mix of bad luck and perhaps lack of marketing (the trailer made it look like a stupid action game, instead of the great adventure game that it was with a deep world and interesting lore to explore.) I don't know how this game will sell and it seems many mistakes where made again with the marketing (really bad idea to release it on the Steam Spring Sale for example) and it will not get near the same appraisal as it has nothing original or groundbreaking in it. I think Appeal really could have resurrected the franchise with this game if they had only stuck to what made the original game so special. If there ever was a third one I don't know if there is any chance that they could go back to that and make it justice and make something truly special. I don't even know if the people who made that game the genius it was are still on the team anymore as I only recognized a couple of names from the credits and judging by this game they dont seem to even understand what actually made the original so special. I had no hope that there would actually even be a sequel to the original Outcast so perhaps there can still be a miracle. I can wish for it, but by judging by the complete wrong direction of this game it feels really dark.
As I wrote at the top this game truly feels like the complete and utter antithesis of the whole design philosophy behind the original Outcast.