Outcast: A New Starting Evaluate (PS5)

Remakes, reboots, revivals. Whether or not it is a lack of recent concepts, exploiting nostalgia, or an earnest want to introduce a brand new technology to previous glories, the leisure business loves bringing outdated issues again. And we love outdated issues coming again, too, so long as it is not Nanna after she’s escaped from the house once more.

1999’s Outcast is the most recent title to be dragged kicking and screaming into modernity with a sequel arriving lengthy after the statute of limitations has handed. However correctly, Outcast: A New Starting requires no data of that recreation to play. Like within the authentic Outcast, we play because the improbably named Cutter Slade, who’s transported by a portal to an odd alien world the place he should remedy the entire issues of the indigenous individuals by capturing a bunch of issues and blowing some stuff up.

Missions are sometimes damaged up into interconnected elements you are able to do in any order, but it surely all principally includes discovering gadgets or capturing issues. That is tremendous. The capturing is useful however forgiving and infrequently irritating. You get a candy jet pack to make traversal a bit simpler. There’s some gentle puzzle fixing, some barely wonky platforming, and a bevvy of throwaway side-quests that contain issues like gliding by rings and capturing baddies.

Sadly, there are additionally loads of technical points to deal with. Switching to efficiency mode so we may play with a greater framerate fully borked the cutscenes, and taking part in in graphical mode meant that in some barely extra intense areas, the frames-per-second dropped to the purpose we may rely them by eye.

There’s an plain attraction to Outcast: A New Starting, and twenty years in the past this might have been the breakout hit for an ongoing Outcast franchise, however in 2024 gamers are spoilt for alternative within the realm of third-person action-adventure video games. When you’re a fan of the AA, mid-tier shooters we used to get again within the day then this is perhaps price a glance, however in any other case, there’s simply not sufficient right here to warrant your consideration.