Outcast: Second Contact: How to revive the brand and appeal to today's players
Game Director Yves Grolet on the development of the remake and the future.
By Benjamin Jakobs Published 01/08/2017
The remake of Outcast has gone a long way. And he did not always go straight. The Frankobelgische Studio Appeal, which had already been responsible for the original in 1999 and was re-launched in 2015, also had to push setbacks. A kickstarter campaign for the new edition, named for Outcast: Second Contact, missed its target clearly.
Yves Grolet
For the developers, however, this was no reason to throw the shotgun into the grain. On the contrary, since then, one has worked hard on the game and in the meantime found a publisher with Bigben, which helps in the realization. With Game Director Yves Grolet, I talked about how it came to the remake at all and how Outcast should address today's players.
"It was a really great success for the team, but it is a really good success, and it's actually sad." After the release of the original, we agreed to work with Infogrames for a sequel at the end of 1999 : Outcast 2: The Lost Paradise, which was planned for 2002 and should be released for PS2 and PC, we worked around a year and a half, and nothing was too big for us, our ambitions were huge, we had to meet the expectations of the Outcast "Says Grolet in conversation with Eurogamer.de.
"In short, in 2002 there was a small financial crisis with Infogrames (which was soon to become Atari) due to the Internet and IT bubble, which is why they opted for a development stop. We had to announce that the game was not on a 'not But the core team of Appeal had developed a strong bond and a common love for the outcast universe, which resulted in 2013 being the rights of Atari, it was a long-term goal, but by that time, we did not have the resources. "
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In the year 2014, a
kickstarter campaign was launched again to the outcast remake, which clearly missed its goal. In the end, only about 268,000 of the targeted 600,000 dollars came together. Then they looked at each other in detail and analyzed what had gone wrong. He also admits that he was "too self-assured".
"We were unprepared and did almost nothing to speak to new supporters - those who did not play the original. As strange as that may sound, but as soon as the dust had settled, this failure gave us new courage and we thought positively : Outcast needs a sensible remake, and after about a week of self-reflection, we all got back to work, aiming to concentrate on an early prototype that should help us secure funding for the project, He explains.
In the
summer of 2016 , Bigben finally announced the release of Outcast: Second Contact and the project suddenly reappeared on the scene after a long pause in which many had already given up hope. "We worked hard and a failure was not an option, but we had no choice but to convince anyone that it was worth it Our savings were at stake! ", He reveals.
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Bigben Interactive was one of the companies to which one turned. The medium-sized company is located not far from the developers, as well as the vision of the developers in terms of the game, says Grolet. In addition, the team knew that they were looking for bold projects, and in the end both sides agreed quite quickly. Outcast: Second Contact was saved.
If you are looking at videos or screenshots on the project, you can jump into the obvious technical improvements. There has been a real effort to improve the original, which in turn posed some challenges for the developers.
"It's true that the game looks different in comparison to the original, but it's nothing like a true-to-the-original remake, and we're using an improved version of the original source code in C ++ that runs within our new game universe Unity Central game components such as the level design, the quest system and the AI. When you play the game, you do not get lost, "explains Grolet.
"But it is not an easy task to catch up with 18 years of technological advances and offer the same awesome gaming experience as before, and we focused on revising the graphics and making the gameplay more dynamic to satisfy modern players And models have been completely redesigned by hand, and we have added a lot of details to them, and we have been able to build and improve the physics and the interface with Unity, and we've worked a lot on the lighting and weather effects Us to convey the original and unique atmosphere of every region of Adelpha. "
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According to Grolet, the biggest technical challenge was to overcome the technical limitations of the original. At that time the development of the game lasted for four years, and many technologies were used for which there is no suitable counterpart today. With his technique, Outcast was a revolutionary game. But nowadays, of course, there are many open-world games. This raises the question: How do you want to arouse interest in the modern game? The developers see this as a difficult task, because to implement something so bold and innovative as at that time with Outcast in today's time is a completely different matter.
"I can only praise the courage of Hello Games and others who take that risk, and honestly I would not do it again (or maybe?) Outcast needed a very powerful PC as it was released The time was not such a big issue, so you needed a special PC to play, and there were no names to adequately describe open-world / action-adventure games, and sometimes a
very immersive story Rather cryptically, you could almost say that Outcast was a kind of elitist game, "he says.
Outcast: Second Contact is therefore intended to address a larger target group. The developers optimize the game for consoles, there is more recognizable feedback and clues, and Bigben strives to give the brand a fresh look. This would make it possible for not only the experts of the original, but also today's players to take a trip to Adelpha, get to know Cutter and Co. and get the feeling that this is only the prelude of a journey.
The start of a journey? This sounds as if you could imagine the plans for a continuation again. "We are currently concentrating on the best possible remake of Outcast," he said, adding, "This is a major milestone for both players and us The first part of the saga that we have in mind, and the first time that many of the players are learning about Cutter and going to Adelpha, we are learning more and more because of discussions with the community and the feedback we have received And hope that a successful Outcast: Second Contact paves the way for future projects. "
In the remake, there is also a change in the technique, for example, Cutter gets new moves and there is a new interface. Above all, one wants to make all the subtleties of the original visible for the first time. All your actions have an effect on the balance of the game world. How accurate, one wants to visualize through visual hints. Likewise, you can now use Cutter to avoid a dodge roll, reacting to the more dynamic gameplay and the quick shot changes.
"As for the world itself, we have created two new venues - not worlds but smaller inner areas - to answer a few questions the fans have been asking for a long time, and presumably to lay a foundation for the continuation of the story. ..", he adds.
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In the last few years, we've seen a lot of remakes of different quality - some greatly improved, others just a little. How does Grolet see this trend? "As a developer who is working on the remake of his own game, the whole thing was pretty much on my nerves, should we be as close to the original as possible, or modernize everything, it is difficult to find the right balance between nostalgia and progress. I can not answer this question completely, but our goal was to replicate the same gameplay, even for the players who have the standards of Triple A games anchored in their heads. "
Outcast: Second Contact for PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Regarding the Switch, Grolet states that Nintendo's console is definitely suitable for games like Outcast, where there is always something to do and with which one can always spend a bit of time between.
"There were talks, but nothing was confirmed," he says. At the very least, the idea of an implementation is appealing. Whether this final end comes, remains to be seen.