Out of all the games I played during Next Feast this one has me the most excited. They had three separate demos with different limitations set out that allowed you to explore, kill, and quest. This game looks amazing, it was a blast to move around, and I found the overall energy of this game just to be amazing.

Exploration

First up I gave the exploration demo a try. They put a limitation of 20 minutes of gameplay, and you could only place this demo like all other demos twice. Despite that, I had a fair bit of fun exploring a couple of sites.

The most fun was gliding around or using the jetpack to get over cliffs and other areas. I had a decent performance and things looked decent enough even when I was moving around the map quickly to get to a couple of areas that interested me.

These ruins like structures out on a lake or a river were the first things I came across that lured me in to explore them further. I even jumped up on the rock next to me to get some further height before gliding down to them.

Once I was down there, I ended up finding a timed event that had me following around an essence ball. I needed to get to different checkpoints within the allotted time. I was doing great for the first couple of minutes but then I lost track of the essence and did not realize I needed to jump using the jetpack to quite a high point.

The jetpack itself has a short amount of fuel. You get quite a short use out of it unless it’s just gliding along the ground or over a lake. There is even a little indicator on the back of it so visually it shows you when it’s ready or running out of fuel with the stripe of blue on the back of the character.

After that area, I went back to exploring a bit more. I’ll admit I used a little more time than I should have on that area. I was however having a blast messing around with using the glider, jetpack, and following around the essence to notice just how much time it ate into.

It’s hard to tell how big the map was for the time I spent in the exploration demo. The good news is there are portals from what I can tell you can use to port around. They, however, were not connected. I was able to turn one of them on but that was of little use to me.

I then started gliding around further looking for another location. I ended up going up some cliffs. Along with shooting at some birds and any other wildlife, I could find. They ended up dropping some elements that turns out my guns were using. Making it nice and easy to keep my guns full of ammo.

It should be no shock the building that was covered in a bubble caught my attention next. I could not find a way to get into it. The bubble around it was acting like a force field which I fully expected it to be.

I was hoping there would be some underground cave or something I could enter the building that way. I went around the upper ledge a couple of times. Since I wanted to keep exploring around the top I avoided jumping down to see if there was any entrance at the bottom of the cliff in.

I then found something called a Gork Eruption. It was a nice little mini-event that had me killing quite a few corrupted creatures. I switched over to using the shotgun-style weapon I had instead of the little pistol I'd been taking things out with.

After that, there was not much time remaining before I ran out of time and got booted out of the demo. I ended up finding some other ruins that I quickly flew over trying to make the most of the small amount of time I had left.

Combat Demo

Next up was the combat demo. There was no time limit on it but once I took out the final objective the demo ended. I had to power down some forcefields that were protecting a generator core that I then got to blow up. This was in the middle of a compound with quite a few enemies to take out.

I love how they started you up on a ledge to get a great view down below. That also kind of made me wonder where should I start. The only logical spot was in the middle with lots of enemies shooting at me.

The main objective was to blast through a bunch of enemies and find three terminals for my guy to work on. Once those were down, I could go and blow up the main reactor.

I got to say I had quite a lot of fun with the combat. I was given the option to mess around with changing mods out on my gun. I, however, did not spend much time with that system and was rather fine with how the guns were set up. It’s nice to see at least you can change up your combat style somewhat with mods on weapons.

Story Demo

Next up was the story demo and it was the last of what could be tried out during the demo. This one had both a time limit on it and an area. While it claimed you were limited to the village of Sappa I was able to explore the surrounding areas since that was where questing for the village was anyway.

Since I had quite a limited amount of time, I did not stick around to hear what the NPCS were saying. I was more interested in doing some quick questing and exploring than anything else.

They have quite an interesting questing system. That allows you to drill down deeper while also getting a quick overview. At the start of many of the quests there I either had not discovered or had not done enough yet to get further details on what I needed to do.

The first mission I went on had me break into a facility and steal a core. After a fair bit of shooting later and turning off some shields, I was able to acquire the core. I then plugged the core into a portal, and it turned on. Since I did not have any other portals active, I could not use it.

It’s great to see there will be some involvement in getting the teleportation portals around the map up and running. While this one seemed quite simple to get going. I can only imagine the lengths later in the game I might have to go to get another portal up and running for quick travel.

The other mission was quite more interesting. Long story short, the tribe hunts a type of shark for food. They are quite primitive so hunting sharks is quite a challenge.

I was tasked with flying around on my jetpack and stunning the sharks so they could be captured. The sharks in return attempted to flee from me and any time I landed in the water they would attack.

Final Thoughts

Overall, I rather enjoyed having three separate demos that showcased different elements of a much larger game. I do wish you could get more time to spend on the demos and have more than just two attempts at each demo.

From what I could tell this game seems to be coming along quite nicely. Other than the movement sometimes feel anytime I move around my mouse. Along with my mouse curser showing up on my second screen. I did not notice anything I'd consider a glaring issue. Everything seemed to be rather great for what they were willing to show.

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Information

Screenshots were taken and content was written by @Enjar about Outcast A New Beginning.

Disclosure: This is based on the demo that was available during the February Next Fest event in 2024.