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Outcast: A New Beginning, the sequel to one of the very first open-world games ever made, is actually hugely inspired by The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.
The Outcast series returns after a quarter-century hiatus, but the 25-year-long break has only given the sequel more influences to pull from. Outcast: A New Beginning sees our main man return to alien planet Adelpha to liberate its native villages from an invasive mechanized faction - and, surprisingly, the way you move around its terrain has more in common with Nintendo's beloved open-world.
"When imagining what the game would be about, we decided that a key point would be to make it completely non-linear," game director Pablo Coma explains in the walkthrough embedded below. "After a brief tutorial, you can go literally anywhere in the world," meaning you can help the native populations in any order you fancy since the game doesn't "lock remote locations behind an experience system."
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Coma continues to say that the first Outcast was obviously the team's "main inspiration," but Nintendo's first proper foray into the genre also provided plenty to think about. "Breath of the Wild was a fantastic game using the same design principles," continues Coma. "We try to keep the same feeling of liberty, but give the player different tools to exploit it."
One such tool is the gliding suit which, unlike the aforementioned Zelda, goes really fast and doesn't consume energy. "So if you start on top of a mountain, you can glide for a very, very long time." Other traversal tools include a mini-jetpack that allows you to zip over large bodies of water and a suit that seemingly lets you hover slightly over the ground.
"We have a big world of 64 square kilometers, and we believe it's a major part of the fun of the game to discover every corner of it," continues Coma. "We hope being able to move fast will entice players to push the exploration of undiscovered areas."
Outcast: A New Beginning is due to launch on March 15 for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S. You can play its demo right now on Steam.
Can it slot into our best open world games ranking?
