OUTCAST

A cinematic action adventure that reaches for the stars.

- Robert Jones

Step with me my friend back to the [checks official PC Gamer 2023 calendar] now very distant past of 1999. Stepping out of our time machine we now exist in a PC gaming world where beige PC tower rigs rule the roost, 3dfx Voodoo graphics cards are still a thing, and Team Fortress Classic is being played over LAN in PC Gamer Towers. Oh, and Outcast is hitting store shelves in all its big-box PC glory.

And, despite sales that will go on to be described, at best, as modest; and the fact that its maker Appeal will go on to bankruptcy within two years of it release, Outcast is about to change the scope and vision of videogames as a medium forever. All truly great pieces of art stem from ambition. That desire to push the boundaries of what is considered possible, and with its stunning (for the time) voxel graphics engine, expansive scope, professional musical score and complex in-game mechanics, Outcast remains even to this day one of the most visionary and ambitious games of all time.

ALIEN TECHNOLOGY

Outcast's story of a group of humans transported to a parallel universe and becoming involved in a time-warping adventure over multiple worlds, encountering numerous alien species, and having to defeat a big bad in order to save the Earth was nothing new in 1999, but the fact that Outcast truly reached for the stars in how it did so absolutely was.

With six large and vastly different alien worlds to visit during the course of the game, and for each of those lands to stretch out before your eyes to incredible distances, powered by the game's unique 'voxel engine', was-and you'll have to trust me here, as a guy who played Outcast back in 1999 on his own beige tower rig - truly mind blowing.