Outcast

Outcast is an action-adventure by the Belgian studio Appeal, telling the story of a team of soldiers and scientists sent to the alien planet Adelpha to prevent a catastrophe threatening Earth. The main hero, Cutter Slade, explores vast, open areas inhabited by the alien race of the Talan, completes tasks, and gradually uncovers the conspiracy behind the catastrophe.

The game was technologically exceptional thanks to its own voxel engine, which in 1999 offered unusually expansive and colorful outdoor environments with a smooth horizon — a combination of action, adventure elements, and open exploration unique for its time. The Talan also communicated through fully voiced dialogue and had a well-developed culture of their own, giving the setting unusual depth. The hardware demands were enormous, and the game was among the most technically demanding titles of its time, which made it difficult for owners of older PC systems to access it.

Outcast is now seen as ahead of its time — its open world and emphasis on exploration anticipated later open-world games, but commercially it failed to succeed as it deserved due to its high performance requirements. Among players and developers it has a reputation as a cult classic and a technical marvel, still admired today by fans of unconventional game worlds and experimental graphics technology. The game's music was composed by a symphony orchestra, an unusually costly decision for game production at the end of the nineties, contributing to the overall cinematic impression of the journey to Adelpha. This is partly why Outcast is still remembered today as a game that dared a vision exceeding the technical and financial possibilities of most of its competition at the time, and partly because of that it became a legend more among connoisseurs than among the wider gaming public. Its exceptional standing is also evidenced by the fact that developers and players repeatedly returned to it in subsequent years through fan-made patches and, later, an official re-release that made it possible to run the game on modern computers.