If you want to buy this game, don't expect a mere shooter in a beautiful scenery. Outcast is more. You will not shoot most of the time, but walk around and collect things, look for people, talk to them and do different quests. The enemies are respawning really slowly, or, depending on the place you are, they don't at all.

The game is really easy to play. I am the roundbased RPG type and usually very bad at shooters, for I have a slow reaction and can't stay calm under (time) pressure. If this sounds familiar, give the game a try. The AI will be worse than you in any case. ;)

The world, a parallel universe, is complex and authentic, but most of all absolutely beautiful.
The protagonist and other characters are quite amusing, and so are the Twon'Ha, two-legged reptiles you can ride on.

You follow a predefined story, but in the order you like, for it's an open world. There are some minor decisions you can make on your own, and of course there are some nice sidequests.

You have six weapon types altogether, but to achieve your goals, you can also use other equipment.
The menu is easy to operate and you will find your way into the game quickly.

Outcast is a really cool game! Only experienced shooter players will maybe be bored.^^
Have fun! :)

Second Contact is the product of a developer who loved their game so much that they wouldn’t take no for an answer. After a failed Kickstarter to fund a full and proper remake, Appeal went ahead and did it anyway.

The original Outcast was a pain to get working right on modern hardware, so Appeal revamped the engine and Outcast v1.1 was born. Not only looking better, the 1.1 revamp added further drawing distances, controller support, achievements, cards, and other Steam-centric features. This revamp was to pave the way as an alternative to Crowd Funding.

But it didn’t happen.

The new sales could not outweigh the monumental costs involved. Despite the setback, Appeal forged ahead and partnered with publisher Bigben to make it a reality.

And here we are today.

Second Contact is a painstaking recreation of the original ported into the Unity engine. Fans of the original will note several points when they fire it up. First is the intro. No longer an animated sequence, we now have a flash animation of the story. Disappointing? Yes. Necessary? Also yes. The only available video is painfully low res, and you can’t just wrap sugar around a turd and call it candy.

Next up you will find the audio is the same, this is a blessing and a curse. I was not looking forward to some low-rent voice actor either mimicking David Gasman’s Cutter Slade or straying completely from him, so I was happy to hear the original sound. Well, almost.

It seems the original voice files are either of very low quality, or missing completely and had to be re-sampled. The clipping and artifacting of the sound bytes can be difficult to endure, especially when you still have the amazing Lennie Moore soundtrack in glorious hi-def. This could be mitigated through volume sliders, if Second Contact had any.

The next contention to be made is the dearth of options in the video and audio department. Only the basics are available, and Appeal has promised to address this. Unity can be a finicky engine to get running smoothly for some hardware, SLI users for example, but Appeal is currently working hard on the first patch. Looking back at the love that Outcast v1.1 received, this is surely only the beginning.

Appeal has also taken some creative license in the worlds recreation. Okaar for instance no longer has its leafy autumn feel, it now wears Shamazaar’s trappings instead. I have yet to complete the remake, so I can’t comment on more at this time, but if I had to guess - I'd say this is all part of the same problem.

Many of these issues that people are taking with this remake seem to stem from one thing – a lack of money. If that were not the case, could they have re-recorded all the dialogue, re-created the intro sequence in CG, and taken the time to reinvigorate the biomes of Outcast? Absolutely. Would they have lost the magic in the process? Possibly. Would it make it a better game? No, absolutely not.

Some of the things that make Outcast such an endearing memory are the janky movement, jumping, and general traversal of the landscape. Like Resident Evil’s tank controls, these features are part of the charm. Appeal has painstakingly recreated this experience for a reason. You are meant to explore, converse, and wrap yourself in the beauty of Outcast’s world. Turning the game into a first person shooter would completely trample that experience and had they done so back in 1999, no one would be remembering it fondly today.

This is a worthy remake, despite the people that don’t seem to get it. It doesn’t replace the original, and it's not meant to. Second Contact is a revisit to that place you got lost in years ago. Stop comparing and just enjoy the ride.

Nominated for "Haunts My Dreams" Award.

Great adventure game if you enjoy games like the Witcher 3. Here are some of my thoughts,

-As it's a graphical remake of the original Outcast(1999), the underlying gameplay has been tweaked while most of the quests are identical to the original. It's great for newcomers and older players who enjoyed the original.
-The presentation is stellar, while not boasting extreme graphics tech, the Unity Engine does a good job of rendering the world of Adelpha from the swaying trees to the low hanging fog in some areas. It's quite a pretty looking game.
-Although the sound is mostly re-used from the original, the voice acting and music steals the show with a great orchestral track making you feel like you're in an epic sci-fi adventure. Cutter's voice acting is good which makes you relate to him(despite his snarky nature) and the Talans are pretty likeable with different personalities(although they do sound the same).
-Most of the quests do result in a lot of 'go here, talk to someone', it's interesting how some of the quests are interlinked with each other. Some items you discover in the world may seem useless now but do play a part for some questline.
-There are puzzle elements which while not infuriating, do require a bit of looking around and detective work. I did get stuck on one quest but the older gamefaqs guide was still viable here but the overall puzzle difficulty is adequate.
-Combat is good with your opponents bobbing and weaving out of cover and falling back if you rush them. Pretty impressive stuff considering it's 1999, although some of the enemy pain sound effects do sound repetitive. The weapon selection is pretty good although I wish the ammo for the flamethrower wasn't so rare and expensive.
-The camera could use some work as the third person aim is fine, it feels a bit loose and the camera can spaz out if you are too close to some buildings. A variable camera zoom and a first person mode(like the original) would've been nice.
-Although there is a fast travel system(only in the area you're in), there's a LOT of walking/running around. It might be a turn off during the starting of the game, there's quite a bit to explore in Outcast's environments.
-The controls are a bit clunky escpiecially while platforming. There seems to be a slight delay while jumping and your character may or may not grab the ledge you're trying to grab.
-One of the boss battles was bugged but it was solved with loading another save.
-Playing with exclusive fullscreen crashed the game while exiting and some graphical bugs(sometimes during conversations) were there but nothing too game breaking.
-Performance was pretty good for the most part(on Ryzen 1600 and GTX 1060 6gb 16gb RAM) although there was bit of stuttering in some parts.

Get this if you want to experience an authentic 90's adventure game with loads of humor, intrigue and action. Definitely grab this during a sale when you get the chance. May the Yods be silent!

I'll just go ahead and paste my review of 1.1, because it stands more valid than ever.
(Thoughts on this version at the bottom)


This game is from the time when games actually had SOUL.
I'm 34, playing games since about the age of 7 and this is one of the very selected few games that I play through again every couple of years.

I won't tell you how awesome its graphic are, I won't tell you how amazing its voice acting or tell you about all the shiny bells and whistles this game has.
I will only tell you to start it, take your first steps on the carckling snow, and if you are not sucked into its world in the same second with a bigass smile on your face, then man you know nothing about games and you have nothing to do here.

This game belongs in the pantheon of games, it's a true masterpiece.

it's not 10/10, it's way beyond numbers

love it from the bottom of my heart


Thoughts on the remake:

- New graphics are just beautiful. They not only managed to update the graphics in such a way that they kept the original aesthetics but enhanced it even more in a brilliant stylized way.
Adelpha is truly a wonder to look at. It's is like a moving painting with a color palette that is spot on (just look at the skybox and clouds....)
Also: the snow particles and ligting in the starting region is one of the very best I have ever seen in a video game. It's simply magical.

- sound is 100% percent the original, which comes as a double edged sword.
For diehard fans like me; I wouldn't have it any other way, but for new players it can be offputting
as it is quite low res and only stereo (bear in mind it's 1999 we are talking of).

- Controls are a bit wonky and could definitely use some improvement (im playing with a controller) but nothing gamebreaking or fustrating. It just takes some getting-used-to

- Performance I'm running it on a i7 4790, 8G ram, gtx1070 and it runs "just ok". You would definitely expect it to run better and there seem to be some microstutters. Nothing major but could use some improvement.

All in all the remake is technically sound and delivers what it supposed, but could definitely use a patch to iron out the quirks.

Closing thoughts:

Can't tell you how happy I am that Appeal kept going on and remained persistant.
Just think about it: it is a very small team that reacquired the rights for their own studio which went bankrupt in 2002 and after a failed kickstarter project they eventually found a way to make this remake happen (thankyou Bigben! ).

I really hope that this release will be succesful enough, so that Appeal can finally make the sequel that never came and open the Daoka to this universe, which has crazy potential.
The world of Outcast is truly magical and has a soul that is extremely rare these days and if anything, THIS franchise (and devs) deserves that second chance.

May the Yods be silent :)

It's still good ol' Outcast, and it's still great. Might be a bit on the pricy side, but what you get is pretty great.

The graphics are suitably Outcast. It will not blow you away with its shine or glimmer, but it is consistent in its art direction and delivery. The opening scene showers you in particle physics and it looks pretty great, in my opinion.
I expect it to run fairly OK on most machines.


Sound is ripped straight from Outcast, with a few new additions, and thats not a bad thing. The original sounds are strange and fantastic, it suits the world it's in.
Do expect somewhat lowfi audio though, the orignal game came out in the 90's after all.


Gameplay is also pretty much the same, but a somewhat reworked camera makes it better and equal at the same time. It's not worse off, nor automatically better either. It does jerk around abit when aiming and walking down a slope.
I'm not sure I like the addition of explenation of the different names of places, things and beings. I liked the way you had to figure this out on your own in the original, even if it didn't take much to figure it out. It just breaks the immersion seeing an explenation of what the Yods are in parentheses next to the word.
Jumping is still very odd, and will not sit right with most people, even if the animation has been reworked.


Animations for Cutter Slade have been reworked, they look better for the most part but syncing the animation with the audio is a slight issue. Melee combat looks odd and should either be ignored by players or need another rework by the devs.


The options menu is pretty much the worst part of this game, and probably the only real problem the game has at launch. Other gripes people have with the game can be forgiven as a relic kept from the original game, mostly nitpicks to be honest.
But the options menu is terrible.

It has three tabs, "Main", "Keyboard" and "Graphics".

The "Main" tab does contain a lot of options. Voice and text language, game options (health and difficulty), some camera options (invert Y axis, sensitivity), crosshair position, targeting assistance and the likes.

The "Keyboard" tab you'd expect to contain all the key binding you'd be able to bind, but no. It has some of the keys, but blenty missing.
This might be a problem with the fact they now fully support gamepads and has a console release. Chop it down to poor PC port, somewhat.

The "Graphics" tab contains the barebones of graphics settings. You can change resolution, fullscreen on or off, vertical sync on or off, and "Quality" ranging from "normal" to "very high".
No texture filtering options, no texture quality options, no FOV option, no particle quality option, no shadow quality option, you name it.
The "Quality" option seems to not impact performance at all, and seems to only changes the shadow quality.
Not only is the graphics options barebones, there is no audio options to speak of.

I expect them to update the options menu at a later date, or at least I hope they will.

Back to the great stuff. The game loads really fast, it might only take a couple seconds to load from level to level, or from a save, or just booting up the game in general. It's fast, really fast.
The UI has been reworked, and it's a step up from the original. The original was far from bad, but this new one is more inline with how we expect modern UI's to look and work. It's simple and to the point.
Did I mention the music is great? Well, it's the same soundtrack from the original, so it's bound to be fantastic.
The game only takes up about 8.5 GB of harddrive space. In a time where games take upwards of 50 to over 100 GB, it's refreshing to see a game that doesn't need that much space.

TL:DR
It's a great remake, but a tad bit pricy.

EDIT 01 - 22.11.2017
Post release patch has been released, with mode audio settings, movement tweeks, and general bug fixes... but still lackluster in the controls and graphics option departement.

I was so excited for this release. I am a die hard outcast 1.1 fan, I even hold the world record speedrun time for the game. To hear that this was coming out was a dream come true. I bought it right away and started playing. What I found was less than satisfying. The audio imports are identical, the zones are accurate to the original and very beautiful to look at. But the beauty of the game does not compensate for how ABSOLUTELY CLUNKY IT IS.

Movement is awful. Cutter Slade handles like a drunk elephant. He will not sprint unless in a perfect and unobstructed straight line, he decides do dodge roll if and when he wants to with little prompting. The dodge roll only seems to roll me off of a surface into water or roll me straight into enemy fire. Useless to be honest. If I walk by an object or person that can be interacted with, even a door- cutter slade will slow down, look at the object or person and circle around it like magnetic attraction until he is a safe distance away from it then proceeds to run again.

Climbing is basically absent compared to the original, rarely does he climb to a surface i'd like him too, especially because jumping is the worst. Very clunky an uncomfortable to control. Many times I want to jump onto a boat or back onto land and instead Cutter decides he would rather dive headfirst into the dock.

The bugs in this game are almost endearingly and quantifiably similar to the original game, weird things happen like floating NPC's that I can no longer speak to, or reloading a save game only to find out it has caused and irreversible bug that does not allow further gameplay because an NPC will not appear. Etc. Etc. What a joy.

UI is decent, however controls are not customizable you are stuck with what you have and it is very limited.

Combat is very close to the original and a quite like it, there is an element of free look 'over the shoulder' that is nice.

I will continue to play this game, because it does yield some good things, but to be honest what hinders it the most (and an incredible amount) is the lack of control you have over your movement compared to the original game. In conclusion, this game is 2 steps forward, 3 steps back. I would love to see updates to many many things. I will spend most of my time back on Outcast 1.1.

(p.s., the beautiful autumnal feel of Okaar is scrapped for an identical tropical feel to shamazaar.)

It's a great game in its own right - it's not a perfect recreation using new graphics.

If you haven't played the original:
Pros:
* Solid plots - not highly original, but good quality.
* Good action.
* Tuneable difficulty (via how much weapons hurt you for).
* Great exploration.
Cons:
* Stamina bar burns down a little fast.
* Journal system doesn't describe the weapons.
* The "scanner" doesn't do a great job of pointing where announced items are at - even items in plain sight.
Meh:
* No "go here!" indicator for quests - generally gotta find your own way, like in the original.

If you've played the original:
Pros:
* Good graphics uplift.
* Better journal system than the original, IMO - YMMV.
* I like the ability to climb slopes, which the original lacked.
Cons:
* IIncompetence at climbing buildings is just plain goofy, in this version.
* The "scanner" is worse than the original.
* No ending dance scene (!!!!!!).
Meh:
* I'm on the fence on the new model for the Talan people - it's better rendered, but fairly unlike the original model.

Rating: A solid 7/10 - if you played the original, maybe 8/10

TL;DR: Exploration-based sci-fi RPG - worth playing, especially if it's on sale.

Edit: Fixed a formatting issue.

The old version of this game is my childhood.
It gave me such vivid memories, that I wanted to buy it and play it again in this remastered form.

It is the same game at it's core, with improved visuals. The feeling of emotions hit me really hard from the opening frames zooming out from that window in the cabin, right until the end until the credits rolled.
This was the first game that made me cry, when I was around 12, because it was so beautiful.
Today I am 32, and I cried again, because the feeling of pure nostalgia swept over me.

My thanks goes out to all, who worked hard on this game!
Thank you for all those memories, and thank you for giving me the oppertunity, to relive them again!

Now off to the real world again... "Dolotai Kez Okaar"

Competent remake of a game I loved from way back when. Exactly what it needed to be as an update to a classic: Runs on modern systems, updated graphics, updated interface and controls, and preserves the original experience I enjoyed so much many years ago. Strongly recommended!

Lets make this short:
Pro:
- amazing, believable open world to explore
- believable alien culture
- no handholding
- amazing, orchestral soundtrack
- decent looking
- classic Outcast
- good to great voice acting
- no lootboxes....

Con:
- horrible, cheaply drawn intro
- controls at times still clunky

Is it worth your money today? Absolutely yes. In a time of dumbed down lootbox-driven games we get a gem that even in its polished new version is still a bit rough around the edges. If you can look past that its time to get lost in Adelpha.