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One thing worries me though. Recreating Outcast has been difficult enough for Appeal. Second Contact is perfect for the fans, but not objectively perfect so to speak. For instance, Outcast:SC's gameplay has now been tweaked in its first week, but the suggestions have been so universal you'd have to wonder why this wasn't picked up on during development. I fear they may not be up to the task of creating an entirely *new* game, let alone one that's as awesome as I'd hope it to be. Outcast was a one-hit-wonder, and I've always been afraid it'll stay that way.
Creating a new world, new lore, a new story with new characters is a challenge Appeal hasn't really faced since 1999. I honestly hope it happens though. And if not, then at least I'm extremely happy that Second Contact is available.
New thought: which direction would you want a new Outcast game to take? Personally, I think I'd like to see a new protagonist return to Adelpha, many years after the first game. (The time dilation effect should come in handy here.) I think something like how Star Wars: the Force Awakens approaches the old six movies would be suitable for "Outcast: a Twon-Ha Adventure". :-p
That said, many fans, including me, would even be happy if the sequel used alot of existing assets (character models, animations, combat mechanics etc) tweaked a bit and thrown together as an addon or DLC to extend the story and lore. Outcast have never been about gameplay as much as about atmosphere and sense of adventure.
Appeal already had story sketches (or maybe a fully ready story?) for Outcat II: The Lost Paradise which was cancelled.
Regarding the direction, I would love to see good ol Cutter return to Adelpha to confront even more massive threat than Fae Rhan, solve the mysteries of the Yod's true nature, maybe even fight them.
Or how about a darker twist - Cutter Slade goes rogue and becomes a villain similar to that guy from Watchmen movie who kills millions for the sake of peace, and we play as a new protaginist and face morally struggling Cutter as final boss.
Do you remember when you first learned that Mon is a computer board, and that Fae Rhan and Kazar are actually Cutter's old pals from his team? Was that shocking then? Well imagine how players can be shocked with THIS twist.
Nah, won't happen :)
What I view as a proof of competence and success here is just how wonderfully Appeal managed to keep the soul of the game intact. I still remember the sense of wonderment when I first played the original game in 2001 as I explored Adelpha and the new art assets of the remake really managed to transfer that to 2017. Sure, the game has a "Unity feel" to it that is different than the totally unique nature of the "voxel" tech from the original game but apart from that the look of Second Contact is 100% Outcast.
Tackling a sequel is a different beast of course since a totally new project would need new talent, especially writers because damn, I have no idea if Douglas Freese ever worked on another game but the writing here really holds up. I hope if there's a sequel he'll return but if he doesn't I feel that surpassing the first game's writing will be hard to accomplish. Maybe a guy like Jonas Kyratzes could do it?
I agree: Cutter is a great character but he feels dated as a protagonist now + I could imagine a few twists and turns but the Ulukai's journey reached its definitive end. He should have a role in a sequel but it's time to pass the torch to someone else.
Where I feel the story has a lot of potential is the relationship between the talans and mankind. In the first game humans made contact with the talans and through Kauffman they even influenced their culture to the point where the talans think of humans as higher beings. Through the four characters of the team mankind managed to a lot of its faces: the wise teacher in Kauffman, the evil tyrant in Xue, the good in Cutter and to some extent the will to communicate and coexist in Marion (though her character is sadly nearly non-existent which is a weird achievement considering that Kauffman is not even in the game and you still learn a lot more about him :D).
This is a great starting point for a sequel, especially if Outcast 2 continues the story decades later. Eventually mankind will learn how to travel safely between the two dimensions while the talan civilization will advance technologically since they have a LOT of "sacred objects" to study and learn from (those sneaky recreators will recreate the talan nuclear bomb eventually :D). Further conflict between the two races seems inevitable: humanity will surely want to get advantage of the talans once travelling to parallel dimensions starts working properly while the talans will have more means to defend themselves from another Fae Rhan. That's super interesting so basically you can write a whole sequel that is about mediating between the two sides in order to reach peaceful coexistence. I'm sure the Yods could have something to do with that too so it's a great opportunity to discover more from the past of Adelpha. :)
From the tiny bit of material that was released from Outcast 2 I'm almost sure that the story would have been something like this.
Yup, yup. And "evil" Cutter would fit nicely in that concept. Imagine if, at some point, he had to choose between talan and human lives... that could break him. It's popular now to have "grey" villains, who the protagonist must stop, but at the same time we understand their motivation and feel for them. Plus, a nice twist. Oh, in the end he goes back to the light side and we join forces to defeat the true villain. Classic.
As far as a sequel is concerned, lightning rarely strikes twice. Re-makes can undo the magic sometimes, and I personally feel there shouldn't be one for this game.
But, yes - thanks to the developer. The work here was worth the price, easily. Just a phenomenal remake.
And anyway I'm on the opinion that trying is always better than not even trying. A bad Outcast 2 could not harm the original game in any shape or form while fans would appreciate a good sequel a lot.
Even if this doubles in the next few months, I doubt it will be enough to fund a sequel. Please prove me wrong here, guys!
If it isn't a full game I would still be happy to see some kind of DLC, perhaps a new region? I think all of this depends on sales in the first place.
Maybe it sells well on consoles, who knows.
Let's hope!
I just hope the developer here makes money from this - as I’ve already said, this is the best remake I’veever played.
If they ever made Switch version and improved the gameplay for that version (as well as continue to improve it on other platforms) then maybe it would sell better on that console, but still the way I see it, the only realistic chance for sequel is if some bigger publisher than BigBen would see the potential and fund the development of the sequel...
Or if the guys at Appeal managed to create some other, entirely new smaller scale indie-game that would become a big success...and then after that come back to Outcast 2.
But ye, the problems with this remake are that for most gamers its flying completely under their radar, they dont even know that it exist, let alone about the original game....and many of those that do, simply dont care, cause they are not interested in playing remake of 18 year old game (that still very much playes like 18 year old game), especially if they have plenty of new triple A games to spend their time and money with.
So anyhow, the way I see it, the best chance for sequel is if Appeal would somehow be able to make a good deal with some bigger publisher, but they already mentioned this back during Kickstarter campaign how difficult it is to find anyone who would be interested in Outcast, because of the such small fanbase it has. Even if they would find a publisher willing to fund the development, the problem still is, how you get people interested if they havent ever even heard about/tried the first game?
Anyhow I hope that one day it happens, I never thought we would ever even get remake like this in the first place, but realisticly the sales from this remake are likely not going to be enough to even cover the development costs (even though Second Contact likely had very small budget), much less be big enough success to guarantee sequel. And while Outcast 2 wouldnt necessariyl have to have big triple A budget, the fact is that getting the kind of modern sequel we fans would want, would still require significantly higher budget than what they had for this remake.
True, but then again, its not like they even tried....in my understanding, after the original Appeal went bankrupt/fell apart, everyone kind of went to their own way of doing something else and only recently the key people from the original team got back together and acquired the rights back for Outcast.
But ye, I quess you are right and overall ofc if they ever would set out to do Outcast 2, they would require a lot bigger team with designers that have understanding of what gamers like/dont like about modern triple A games and how to really make Outcast 2 appealing (pun intended) to both younger and older generation of gamers. I just hope that should they really get a chance of doing the sequel that those key people in the team understand that Outcast cant ride alone with its cult-classic status, that means nothing to those who were not there to play and experience the original back in 1999.
But ye the chances for proper sequel are indeed slim, but should that one day happen, I really hope that the devs understand that they cant/shouldnt cut corners....Outcast 2 simply coldnt be the kind of low-budget production that Second Contact was, so the sequel should only happen if they have the money and people and resources behind it make it the kind of sequel that Outcast would deserve.