I know this was already mentioned in another topic but seeing as how hard the actual information is to get out of that one here's a new thread.

The original developers launched a Kickstarter for an HD remastered version of the original game:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/outcast-reboot-hd/outcast-reboot-hd

Update: the first gameplay video from the remake (using old models in the new environment):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DgXpmIY5BM

Support Outcast on Steam Greenlight:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=253011564

As you can see, the situation is a bit grim: there's only 20 days left and only 1/3 of the goal was collected so far. So spread the word and support the project so that we could get a badass new version of the game and keep the hope alive for a sequel!

I've just put out a video from the original game in the best quality possible showcasing a bit of the varied gameplay in Outcast. If you'd like you can use it to show the game to those who may like the genre but have no idea what Outcast actually is:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NDey_C0Wqs

Here's an older one from Okasankaar:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLw_9UEqfcA

And another one with the intro and Ranzaar:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hExnb0uDDcY

Huge props to Zenger for his amazing HD patch and the great guys who gave me advice on how to tweak the ini files for the best visual quality!

I don't share the negativity about the game. Sure, in a general sense Outcast may be similar to games that came after (open-world gameplay, mix of conversation and action) but it still had a fantastic sense of style, and interesting story, and tons of cool details that give it its own character, which I don't think has been matched since. Having played it for the first time a few years ago I was very, very impressed, and I hope the remake can be funded so more people can experience the game.

$392,000 in 20 days is totally possible. Let's make it happen!

I disagree with most of the things you say but I think I'll come to the same conclusion as you did at the end.

I don't see the differentiation between European-developed games and American ones, I think it has to do more with the genre: an old school RPG, a turn based strategy game or a point-n-click adventure is considered to belong on the European market because that's where people usually buy those titles. Also, it's IGN: they are the most famous idiots in the industry. Hey and there are some more European developers and publishers who managed to get big after some time: Crytek, DICE or Ubisoft for example.

I partially agree on that Outcast has a small fanbase but the thing is: it's a lot bigger than 4000 people. I think the low amount of money gathered so far comes from these two factors:
- the media did not really jump on the project: a few articles here and there but that's all
- the devs don't have much to show: some screenshots, a video of a small portion of Shamazaar and the old models put into the new environment doesn't really cut it

They also did a fairly bad job in re-introducing people to the franchise. I think that instead of jumping onto Kickstarter as soon as possible they should have made some adjustments to the original game: fix some of the bigger bugs (the community did most of these), add the support of HD resolutions, clear up the graphics by tweaking the settings, stabilize the framerate by updating the engine so that it could use all the CPU cores of modern machines, add the intro video in higher quality, add the newly remastered soundtrack to the game etc. After that release the game on Steam by doing a Greenlight campaign, and then if you see the interest and a bit of money starts coming in you start remaking a game and you only go to Kickstarter when you have a few minutes of pre-alpha gameplay in one of the regions.

Maybe that sounds like a lot of work but I think it's actually not that big of a deal: Outcast was way ahead of its time in terms of features that improve the image quality. Because of the anti-aliasing, the bump mapping and the depth of field effects that are all implemented into the original code you can greatly enhance the image quality simply by editing the ini files. Because of that and the low resolution of the art assets 1080p is not a requirement for the game to look prettier: when I was replaying the game two years ago I was pretty surprised to see how clear the image can look in 720p with all the enhancements. I did not feel like I was playing in 720p even though I'm used to the 1080p resolution, the game simply looked nice and HD. If the engine could be optimized for modern computers performance would not be an issue, basically if the game used only 2 CPU cores it would be more than enough to maintain a solid 60 fps in 720p. Also the terrain geometry can still look impressive because of the voxel technology and to me playing the game in 720p really gave back the feeling I had when I saw the game for the first time back in 2001 and was just amazed at how "real" the terrain looked.

As for the current Kickstarter campaigns at the end I think it really comes down to this: the developers underestimated the power of gameplay footage or simply lacked the resources the put together one. If you have just a snippet of playable footage then you can reach out to influential people on Youtube: 15 minutes on Totalbiscuit's or Angry Joe's channel can mean a lot. In order to get that attention you simply need playable content because those guys won't give you screen time if you've got nothing to show.

I really hope that the devs learned these lessons in the last couple of days because if I was in their shoes now I'd be working hard on something barely playable to come out with in the last two weeks because that's the only thing that could save this Kickstarter campaign.

As for how the game holds up today I think you're really wrong. The game has really solid mechanics that are a bit clunky compared to today's standards but they are unique and they are working. Outcast is a really pure action-adventure title and that's something you simply cannot find in today's games: Assassin's Creed may do a good job in giving you the illusion of grandeur by its visuals but Outcast does a far better job in doing that because it not only uses its visuals for that but also its mechanics:
- by the fact that you can talk to every NPC in the world
- by the old school adventure game mission design that makes you feel you have a deep involvement in everything that is happening around you
- by the need to learn about talan religion, society and language etc.
- by the fact that important NPCs are not marked on your map automatically, instead you have to ask around the talans in the region to give you directions to their locations.

I've always felt the developers have been a little out of touch with the trends and conventions of their time so it would not surprise me if they simply do not know about guys like Totalbiscuit or Angry Joe. Almost everything the core team has worked on before Outcast has been very different but also very imaginitive compared to other games of the time. Even more so, for a game development studio to buy back the rights to their creation over a decade after the release is very rare in any entertainment industry!

To be clear, I don't like Outcast and the more I play it the more I loathe it, but I am still fascinated with how the game was made from a technical and artistic perspective. Most of all I am fascinated precisely with how uniquely it evolved. They didn't seem to pay attention to other games or genre conventions, the idea seemed to be "We want to make a game where you can..." rather than "We want to make an action-adventure game" and they added only what they felt was needed regardless of how games "should" be made. I mean, who the hell does not use polygons!

Hipsters, except they did it before it was cool to do something before it is cool. One step beyond.

At the time there was quite a few development teams who used voxels instead of polygons. Back in the 90s polygon based 3D engines were really basic when it came to modeling terrain so some developers who created games that took place in large open environments preferred the use of voxels. Some examples:

Delta Force 2:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0W5I59EPdTE

Comanche 3:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BG0OpgtrWo

This tech at the time was amazing, actually the first game I remember which used polygons for terrain and did it pretty good was Project IGI:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tGXWOGHuHg

And it's nothing compared to how cool voxel tech was in handling terrain.

I was actually going to mention that the only voxel based games from the late 90's I knew of were some helicopter and tank "simulators", as well as the early Delta Force games that were probably built on those same engines. There was also Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun which used it for some graphical elements (most of the game was still 2D). Oh, I almost forgot about Westwood's Blade Runner point and click adventure game. Not the best use of voxels but it is from the same era as Outcast.

My point however was to say that the Outcast dev-team didn't seem to be looking at what other games were doing, using the example of voxels instead of polygons as an example of how they ignored mainstream convention. I think Outcast has not aged well at all, partially because the tech was so different, but it fascinates me also because I feel that Outcast is a game that exists PARALLEL to mainstream gaming history. It branched off the regular timeline and showed us what games might look like five or six years into the future, though no one picked up on and continued their branch. Instead, mainstream game development caught up a few years later and eventually surpassed it.

I love what Outcast is, but I hate playing it.

My thoughts exactly. In fact, we basically said the same thing in our posts, mine was just a bit more WALLOFTEXT-ey and less well organized. :-P

These devs truly seem out of touch with their time and reality, and I'm not saying that's good or bad, it's just the way it is. Oh, who am I kidding? I think it's a bad thing. They're out of touch with time and reality, but they're not ahead of their time, they may have been ahead in some gameplay ideas in Outcast, but remaking it in 2014 as if it still has something new to offer gamers is downright delusional. I'm with you when you say the voxel aspect of Outcast was the only thing to get our attention and keep us interested, it's such a surreal, alternative-reality/branching-parallel-universe piece of tech in a game, that it single-handedly kept me interested for months, despite the game's many flaws (flaws that fans keep showcasing as "innovative", in my opinion).

Oh, and by the way, please, don't mention Bugbear's 'Next Car Game' again, comparing it to Outcast. They are nothing alike. There's demand for the next Bugbear title because no one else makes what they make, even though a lot of studios did in the past. Outcast? No one needs Outcast in 2014 because, sure, it was ahead of its time and no one was doing what it did, back then, but now there are many games like it -- even better --, doing the same. An Outcast remake is only good to cover the nostalgia needs of the core fans, and there are not enough fans to make it a reality.

Many games like Outcast? :D Please enlighten me, I'd love to play them.

Serious flaws in Outcast? What are those?

Sufyan: Yes, the game was totally something else when it came out. I always viewed it as a very strong vision that was totally realized in most ways and that was only possible back in the day when publishers sometimes let the developers' imagination go wild even on AAA projects. I don't know if it was their intention or not but even the graphics engine served the art design of the game: you really felt like you're in a world that's totally alien and unique.

I'm curious what do you hate in the game, maybe it's something there's a solution for. Anyway I don't think the core fans don't see the game's flaws, personally there are a lot of mechanics I'd make more fast and smooth: I'd like to see easy to access item descriptions ingame for example, I'd change the ammo creating process to an instant bartering system so you won't have to wait for ammo to be made, add a hotkey system to access secondary items more easily, make the combat more fast and the aiming more precise, get rid of the countless geometry bugs etc. The thing is however that the game has so many redeeming qualities that you just have to accept the shortcomings... or back the remake so the issues could be fixed. :D

The overall feel of Outcast is present in several games. You can call it an RPG all you want, to me it's still an action-adventure. With more adventuring than action, hopefully, as the action bit is clunky as hell. You said Outcast let you speak to every NPC whereas modern open-world games don't, well, that's true, but it's mainly because modern open-world titles are way more populated and feel more alive than Outcast. The NPCs in Outcast weren't that many, to begin with, to claim being able to talk to every single one of them is that big of an achievement. You can't talk with every single person in the Assassin's Creed series, that's correct, but each place in those games has THOUSANDS of living inhabitants, it feels like a living world, the bustling city in the first Assassin's Creed has more NPCs than the whole world of Outcast put together, it would be downright impossible to make every single one of them interactive.

As for the shortcomings of Outlast, the story is very ill-presented. You have a kind of cool intro video, then a black screen, you wake up in an orange shirt and are bombarded with information about religion, politics, planets, regions, factions, via a very un-intuitive UI and pretty bad English localization. As if the huge amount of information you have to digest without even knowing who the hell you are playing as or who are the missing crew members in your team you are supposed to be looking for wasn't enough, you get the information by talking to aliens that pretty much look all the same. OK, I got the info, I understood almost nothing of it, but, hey!, let's play the game, after all, it's what really matters, right? Wrong. You get your not-so-subtle tutorial -- unskippable, by the way --, and the mechanics are just broken. I don't even mean broken by today's standards, there were a multitude of games released back then that controlled in a more fluid manner, even if they're not considered groundbreaking innovative hidden gems. Then we leave the outset town none-the-wiser, with a headache from all the amount of way-too-much-info-in-such-a-short-time, and the open-world quite literally opens itself up to us. And this is the best thing I have to say about Outcast: it's impressive how they managed it using that kind of technology, and it's interesting to think about the possibilities, what if voxel engines had been developed further, alongside polygonal tech, what kinds of games could have existed? But whatever it does good, it undermines right away, with an overly complicated world design, the same exactly-looking NPCs, very bad game mechanics, people giving you information about things you don't know about in the first place... everything is boring and confusing. I don't even know what to do because all the regions sound the same and I honestly can't memorize which is which without seeing them first, and instead of introducing the player to it all slowly, making sure it's a discovery -- like in a proper adventure --, they just shove information at you way before you'll need it. Obviously, this is a bad thing, because you'll have to hold on to EVERYTHING they say to you, since you can't tell whether you'll need the info or not. And this was the extent of my experience with Outcast: a game that paved the way to open-world 3D action-adventures, but tried too hard to chew more than it could swallow. Unengaging, boring, complicated, poorly voice acted with even worse localization, very bad game mechanics, tedious searching for NPCs that look exactly the same as everyone else, a very impressive voxel world but with no stand-out features whatsoever so you can have guide-points to clearly navigate around and know where you are... they tried too hard to be Stargate Wars: The Video Game, but failed to understand why both those franchises work, and the game fails to work because of that. Cutter Slade is no Kurt Russel's Jack O'Neil, as much as the "creative minds" behind Outcast might have tried him to be.

Well, I think this is going to be my last post of this nature, the more I talk about this game, the more I find how much I actually don't like it and think it sucks, aside the impressive voxel technology that supported it...

Even by late 90's standards, Appeal was in a very unique position to be given so much freedom to develop such an unproven concept. Radical technology, genre-busting game design. It is a bit ironic that the publishers were the ones to push the name "Cutter Slade" on the main character when they could have done so much more damage at a whim.

As for what I think of the game, I remember playing the demo back in 1999 and thinking it had so much potential. It was highly praised in Swedish gaming press. Only in 2013 would I eventually buy the game and I quickly realised my expectations for games was much lower back in the late 90's, There are many things that make the game unenjoyable to me and much of it has to do with the actual game design and art direction. Character animations, UI, sound effects, projectile weapons, AI scripting... A lot of things just feel so unfinished to me. It's like playing a proof of concept tech demo that is full of placeholder art assets and half-finished mechanics.

The fatal flaw of the game that really makes me unable to push through the above problems is the spectacularly poor writing. The early part of the intro got me very excited (the metaphysics stuff) but before the end of the intro I realise that the setting, the characters and the tone of the game is not something I can take seriously. A 12 year old me would think "The Gamsav" was clever. Late 20's me think this is too silly. I admit I didn't get very far into the game, but the line "Don't worry, I never failed in a mission yet" has haunted me for months and it was all downhill from there. I felt myself getting more and more disinterested in the game and the story the more I played. If you don't know what's wrong with that line or if you find it funny, then I can see why you would look past the game's writing or even enjoy it. Please, game, you don't need to explain everything and turn every game mechanic into canon in-universe functionality, I am a person with imagination and the ability to suspend disbelief long enough to enjoy a story. Goodness, now the alien is telling me that my "items" have been claimed by members of his species thinking they are artifacts of the gods. Is this a 1920's orientalist time warp? Please, just stop it with the cutesy lamp shading of game mechanics, you are only ruining the suspension of belief by drawing attention to it!

groze mentioned most if not all the things I hate about the game. In the end, I fundamentally disagree with the core design and direction of the game. It is strange really how a game with such genuine heart and spirit can be so antithetical to my tastes and sensibilities. The game certainly isn't half-assed, they worked hard and did what they felt was right as opposed to just playing it safe. I can see why the original fans still love the game and why some can even discover it and love it today, but I can not unsee and unhear the things that just kills the game for me.

Okay so you don't like to be challenged, case closed. :D It all comes down to personal taste really because it seems to me that you don't like adventure games. When I say that Outcast is a pure action-adventure title I mean it quite literally: it's an old school adventure game with action elements, not the other way around like people seem to believe these days. The thing is that in the last couple of years action-adventure changed because if you take the original meaning something like Assassin's Creed does not fall into the action-adventure genre. That's an open world action game, that's it.

When you think about Outcast try thinking about the Tomb Raider or the post Prince of Persia 3D Prince of Persia franchise because that's what action-adventure truly means: you progress through defeating enemies during action gameplay and you solve challenging puzzles. Outcast takes that a step further becuse it fully incorporates the mechanics of point-n-click adventure games into its gameplay: you talk to NPCs, select the useful information from all the gibberish because yes, most of the dialogue is there to entertain but also to confuse you (it's a conscious design philosophy of course) and you solve puzzles from the gathered information while occasionally engaging in combat.

Overall while it has a lot in common with RPGs (especially with the old school dungeon crawlers you may have never heard about if Outcast was too much for you :D) at the end they only used up the RPG mission structure and the closed city like settings they take place. There are basically two titles that managed to give something back from this complex mixture of in terms of game design since the release of Outcast: Fallout New Vegas and Batman: Arkham City. That's it.

Anyway comparing the game to titles like Assassin's Creed or GTA in the sense that "they are better because they have more people" is just plain stupid because you forget about the context. GTA has large crowds because it imitates a modern metropolis, Assassin's Creed does the same and on top of that crowd mechanics are an important part of gameplay. The regions in Outcast however serve a very different purpuse: Ranzaar is a barren iceland with a small refuge for soldiers of the uprising against the main antagonist, Shamazaar produces riss, Motazaar is a mining community etc. The point is that Outcast has settlements, not large cities so an overpopulated world would seem stupid when you only see a few houses. The only exception is Talanzaar: you get the high population and a large city there because that is Adelpha's capital. Anyway the crowd sizes are based on a number in the settings so in the remake they could crank up the population size so Talanzaar could feel larger and more populated if they want to do it.

As for combat I agree on that, now it feels even more clumsier than at the time of release but that's because tech limitations: the game was designed around 25-30 fps so action sequences had to be this slow and inaccurate. I'm sure that with 60 fps in mind they'd adjust that in the remake.

Don't get me wrong, I don't mean to insult you but seems to me that in your situation it's not about the game being bad, it's just that you have a different taste. Some players feel this way because they think "oh, it's like Assassin's Creed" and in reality, it's nothing like that.

I take no offense whatsoever from the things you rightfully pointed out, but let me just clarify some things:

I gave the example of Assassin's Creed because it was the first thing that came to mind, regarding open-world games. I don't think of that series as a pure action-adventure game, as I grew up playing the Tomb Raiders and the Legacy of Kain games. Those were action-adventure titles. Beyond Good & Evil was probably the last 'true' action-adventure game. And you know what? All of those games are better than Outcast, if you think of it as an action-adventure game. The problem with Outcast is that it tried to be so many different things at once, it didn't manage to do any of them to its full potential.

I'm not that young a gamer, I'm really sorry if I gave off that impression. I grew up playing the good old point & click adventures of the 80's -- they're still my favorite genre of games, by the way --, so challenge isn't something I run away from. Outcast fails miserably at capturing anything from the point & click adventures, since you mentioned it. The writing is dumb, the story is just Stargate dumbed-down and horribly written, with jokes and game mechanics "subtle" (that's sarcasm) integration "humor" that would have made me facepalm had I played it at the age of 16. Point & click adventures had confusing puzzles, not confusing everything, like Outcast has. If I am to be challenged by a game, it has to be able to immerse me, to make me care for its characters and its plot. Outcast fails at doing so, it just vomits information on you as soon as the game starts, and you're like 'oh, wait, I have to memorize all this, let me grab a notepad so I can write it down, after I go through all this appalling delivered dialogue again'. Point & click games sometimes have a lot of characters you have to remember, game-specific lore, but they don't just throw it all in your face as soon as you start playing. It's an adventure, you're supposed to discover things about the plot as you move along, and it also helps keeping the mystery up and having the player interested and on the edge of their seats until the end of the game. Why the hell should I care about rescuing my crew members in Outcast? As soon as the game starts they give me so much crap about the Chosen and the religions and the bad guys killing (whatever word they use for killing, because -- hey! -- it's funny to just change words around!) and ruling over the good guys, that I forget what I was supposed to be doing. And since I know nothing about my character or his team, apart from what was implied in the intro video -- which isn't saying much --, I don't feel invested in that original-now-turned-side quest.

When I say I take no offense, I mean it. I'm not a younger gamer, but even if I was, what you said shouldn't be offensive, if I had played Assassin's Creed before even knowing Outcast existed I shouldn't be offended if an Outcast fan said the things you just said, because that's how nostalgia works. I understand most young gamers wouldn't be able to play Soul Reaver because it looks ugly, and their notion of an action-adventure game is way different than mine. They have the right to not want to play it, and to think Darksiders is a way better action-adventure game -- because their own nostalgia tells them so. The thing is, if they play Soul Reaver, if they're able to look past its dated looks and slower, simpler attack mechanics, the puzzles are still as enjoyable and challenging as they ever were, the character development is still one of the best in the history of video games, the plot is still top-notch, the writing is still at a literary level, the voice acting is still as great as it has always been. But Outcast? What does it have, to redeem how badly it aged, how clumsy it plays? The writing is bad, the humor is childish and unfunny, the voice acting is atrocious, the story is confusing and uninteresting, the art direction is ugly... it just feels like a play test of something that mixed a lot of potentially good ideas, but didn't bother to expand on any single one of them. It does a lot of things at once, and fails to do any of them good. It's just very confusing, and not in the way you seem to think point & clicks are confusing.

I won't do any real explaining on why you're wrong about the story (that's why I didn't reply to Sufyan's post too because all of his preconceptions are very misguided and false) because I don't want to spoil anything if you ever decide to give the game a second chance. You'd have to play the game more and see more of the story in order to come up with a solid argument so instead I'll just give you some pointers because the game is truly intimidating at first, you're absolutely right about that. I have to defend the writing and the voice acting though when it comes to sillyness: the games does not really take itself too seriously in its tone but it gets more and more serious as the story progresses. It's also important to point out that the talan does not say silly or childish things because their dialogues are badly written and acted, on the contrary: most of them ARE simple and childish beings but to understand that you really need more playtime. Cutter says silly things for this exact same reason: he adapts, he gains their trust by communicating on their level. Also, it's a minor spoiler but the talans do not speak English natively, they LEARNED to speak simple English, that's why they have limited vocabulary and mix talan words into their talk. So again let's not forget the context: you are communicating with aliens, not human beings and the writing and the voice acting perfectly captures that. Go to a foreign country where the native language is not English and start talking in English: you'll notice that you'll dumb down your vocabulary, even use hand gestures if you must in order to communicate efficiently. That's exactly what Cutter does in the game.

Okay, some pointers:
- the lexicon and the notepad are your best friends, no need to write down anything: if an information appears in those after a conversation (especially in the notepad) that most likely is important information.
- don't confuse yourself with all the regions at first, start in Shamazaar and stick with it till the game really gets going
- use a controller: I always felt that the controls with mouse and keyboard are clumsy at best but after setting up a good control scheme in Xpadder for my 360 controller even the combat felt a lot better. Seems like the game was designed with a joystick / gamepad in mind, the cancelled Dreamcast version makes that logical and it's also worth noting that the game has an auto-aim system
- give it some time: the story builds up really slowly

Anyway it's strange that you mention Soul Reaver because I had the exact same experience with that game last year you're having with Outcast now: it felt dated and hard to stomach, did not manage to do it. :D Ialso hated the voice acting which I loved in Outcast btw. :D

I'm convinced that the game needs a remake now so that newcomers can enjoy it too.

Like Sance231, I really enjoyed the story in Outcast. It gets very interesting farther into the game. I also like the voice acting and the humorous parts as well.

And I definitely concur that a remake would be a good thing. Not only would new players get to play this classic game (and hopefully love it as much as I did when i played it for the first time a few years ago), but it will help fund development of a full sequel, designed from the ground up with modern technology in mind.

Sadly the campaign is slowing down, so we need to spread the word some more. I hope there are some other Outcast fans here at GOG who will consider donating.