Outcast: Second Contact – Do we really want a remake?

All too often I find that my mind has played a trick on me, as with the news of Outcast: Second Contact. My opinion of some games and movies is way better than they deserve. Perhaps ‘deserve’ is not the right word. I remember them as though they offered photo-realistic graphics and special effects. I am thinking of games such as Knight of the Old Republic and movies such as TRON. Another such a distortion is with Outcast, an adventure game set on the alien planet Adelpha and which featured protagonist Cutter Slade. The game offered a lot in 1999: good special effects combined with a large story driven environment and a lot of action.

I can still remember the time Outcast was featured on the front cover of PC Magazine. I think I must have stared at that cover – as a teenager – more than actually reading the article. Outcast was great, not perfect, but great. The use of voxel graphics was daring but as with games such as Giants Citizen Kabuto and Deus Ex the freedom of choice was the selling point.

A remake?

And so Outcast is getting a remake. It is called Outcast: Second Contact. The remake is being produced by Appeal, a Belgian developer, but it is not the original developer as they went bankrupt. This development comes on the heels of a failed Kickstarter campaign that did not prevent the project from going ahead. So the question remains. Do I really want a remake? I remember the original in a far too positive light. I know that. I am conscious of it. And yet, I fear being disappointed. When I saw the first screenshots for the remake I was actually NOT disappointed. The remake looks exactly like how I remember the original.

Release

I suppose the questions is if the developers can make the experience more than just a trip down memory lane. As it is a remake the gameplay and graphics style will remain much the same. That has me worried about the depth of the experience. The most recent release date for Outcast: Second Contact was March 2017. I don’t think the developer will make that. Frankly I don’t want them too. As on March 21 Mass Effect Andromeda will be released which is the most anticipated game of 2017. A late spring release will do me just fine. Outcast: Second Contact is set for release on the Xbox One, PS4 and of course Windows PC. Do I think such as game would do fine with the Nintendo Switch crowd as well.

Meanwhile the original Outcast can be downloaded on Steam as version 1.1. It was updated in 2014 to allow for higher resolutions and contains some bug fixes as well.