Outcast 1.1 now on Steam, free update for owners on GOG

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Outcast 1.1

The Kickstarter for Outcast's 'HD' reboot didn't have quite the momentum the development team were hoping for, reaching under half its target before creators Fresh3D conceded defeat earlier this year. Now, something called 'Outcast 1.1' has popped up on Steam and on GOG—what's that all about then? Well, it's a new version of the game featuring a few welcome enhancements, such as redone skyboxes, native Xbox 360 controller support, and a redesigned HUD to better fit with higher resolutions. Oh yeah: higher resolutions. You can now run Outcast natively at more modern resolutions, without having to mess around with mods. Considering the original game ran at around the same resolution as a postage stamp, this is a very fine addition indeed.

The Steam version does have a big point in its favour, however. The last week or so's worth of patches have been arriving there a lot quicker—at the time of writing, it seems the GOG version has only been updated the once. I've played a little of that version, and while it wasn't unplayable, it didn't run well. (It's also far, far uglier than I remember, even with those nicer skyboxes, but that's by the by.)

Anyway: Outcast is back! Sort of! While it's not the full-fledged HD reboot many were hoping for, it's nice to see it being given even a modicum of care and attention.

Tom Sykes
Tom Sykes

Tom loves exploring in games, whether it’s going the wrong way in a platformer or burgling an apartment in Deus Ex. His favourite game worlds—Stalker, Dark Souls, Thief—have an atmosphere you could wallop with a blackjack. He enjoys horror, adventure, puzzle games and RPGs, and played the Japanese version of Final Fantasy VIII with a translated script he printed off from the internet. Tom has been writing about free games for PC Gamer since 2012. If he were packing for a desert island, he’d take his giant Columbo boxset and a laptop stuffed with PuzzleScript games.