Outcast: A New Beginning Review

I like my name, but it's not as good as 'Cutter Slade', the name of the protagonist in Outcast: A New Beginning, the long, long, long-awaited sequel to 1999's Outcast, released only for PC. But seriously, who calls their kid Cutter? Apologies to anyone named Cutter out there, but I'm jealous of your excellent name. Slade is the wise-cracking saviour of the Talan people, dubbed 'Ulakai' by the natives of the planet Adelpha, a verdant expanse that's been invaded, colonised, and exploited by human interlopers. So far, so Avatar. Bringing guns and a nifty jetpack to the party, Slade takes the fight to the militarised WFA (the World Federation of Advertisers, a quick Google search confirms), blasting droids and hostile fauna alike, in a bid to defend the Talan.

An open world third-person adventure, like its beloved forebear, Outcast: A New Beginning is, as its suffix suggests, a clean slate. It turns out there's a good reason it's lost the '2' in its title – this is, for all intents and purposes, a reboot. Cutter finds himself surfacing in Adelpha with little more than the clothes on his back, forced to raid WFA bases to acquire his signature jetpack and arsenal, as well as that visor he always sports for scanning the landscape. It seems that no prior knowledge of the series' roots is required. What follows is essentially a procession of errands, carried out at the behest of the various tribal Talan folk inhabiting the small villages dotted across the planet.

These invariably revolve around collecting and depositing certain items in a stockpile, escorting or luring some creature or other, and battling the robotic forces of your human aggressors. Cutter's skills as an ex-Navy Seal mean that the nuts and bolts of the third-person shooter action is perfectly robust, wielding guns and a fancy deployable energy shield to defend against enemy projectiles. But zipping around using Cutter's jetpack is undoubtedly one of the game's more pleasurable activities (and gliding, once you've unlocked the wingsuit upgrade).

Portals known as 'Daokas' enable you to fast travel between settlements and to certain regions in the wilderness that lies in between, should you grow weary of jetpacking hither and yon. Like every open world adventure, there are extraneous activities to engage in, like cleaning up diseased 'Gork Eruption' nests, unlocking ancient temples harbouring useful baubles, snatching Outposts (all steel struts, prefab cabins, guard towers, and chambers) from the clutches of the WFA, and, most annoying of all, following trails of light to Essence Shrines and Orym Chests.

You can also pick plants and gather other resources for crafting, while certain minerals (Helidium) serve as ammo for Slade's guns, and others can be invested in new jetpack and combat abilities. The jetpack starts out as a boost jump, before evolving into something resembling an actual jetpack with upgrades, while guns can be fitted with modules like homing bullets, explosive sticky mines, and other gubbins to make them more effective and interesting. Unfortunately, none of this is enough to detract from a messy story and poorly structured missions – a lot of A New Beginning is spent suffering through fairly bland expository dialogue, which requires an exhaustive glossary (summoned with a press of the right trigger during chats with NPCs) to translate the jargon spouted by your Talan pals. Often, it can be a right load of zort.

For anyone who's played the original Outcast, this will feel like very familiar territory – A New Beginning is something of a retread. Quests, meanwhile, as they primarily involve fetching, escorting, or killing some such, very quickly grow rather tiresome and repetitive. The somewhat haphazard way in which missions are cued up can also lead you to being somewhere you're not supposed to be until much later, and, in some cases, a conversation referring to something you haven't picked up yet can cause confusion. Even Cutter's dad joke quips can't compensate, although the combat and traversal does prove to be a saving grace.

There are some things that Outcast: A New Beginning gets right, and fans of the original game will no doubt enjoy getting reacquainted with Cutter Slade and his wry sense of humour. Incidentally, a sense of humour is necessary, when you take into consideration that one of your main objectives is to organise a mass sex party to ensure the Talans don't go extinct. No, really. That's not the new Outcast game's biggest problem, though - the dearth of mission variety is. A lot of what's here is thankless busywork, and after several hours of being sent from pillar to post, flapping your jaw with needy Talans, before embarking upon yet another fetch quest or whatever, your patience will likely be stretched to breaking point.

The planet of Adelpha might be a lovingly rendered green and fertile land, and exploring it is often a joy, but repetitious gameplay and a flabby, under-baked story that wastes far too much time on menial tasks, rather than getting down to business, put the brakes on the action. Not without merit, Outcast: A New Beginning does have its moments, but its leaden pace and litany of dull missions make this a missed opportunity.