One of the greatest open world action RPG pioneers
There were a few other RPGs that tried to construct massive, epic sandbox worlds before Outcast came and took the cake, but for the most part size came at the expense of quality, both variety and detail. For instance, Elder Scrolls Arena and later on Daggerfall, the pioneers of massive sandbox, both tried to convey a massive open ended environment in which you did whatever you wanted to, however, most often, the content was generated randomly, which wasn't by any means the most convincing way to entice players. Then came Outcast, a game that created a more condensed open world (Adelpha) full of mystery and very interestingly designed, spiked by the alien/portal to another world story and built on a proprietary voxel like technology (ray casting) coupled with polygonal texture maps for the game objects (phew!) which still looks good today. At any rate, the game draws you in with its compelling action oriented sequences, shooting, melee combat, chases, etc. There is also a lot of interesting dialogue which explores the cultural differences between the Adelphian alien civilization and your own, which points to real world interactions between races and all the issues that can arise from these differences. Furthermore, the control is as simple as it gets. Apart from the WASD and mouse movement scheme, you only need to use your left and right mouse buttons for the entire range of in-game commands. You can play from a 3rd person perspective or a first person perspective and so, you can say that the game has all the amenities required by a serious modern game. Today there is a project in development that aims to bring forward the second game in the series, which is currently developed as a Crysis Wars mod, by fans. The project looks to resurrect the official second game in the series which was never released due to the developer's going bankrupt. Which reminds me, during the initial phase of development of this community driven sequel, the engine used to develop Gothic 1 was considered but later abandoned. I'm mentioning this because I feel that Gothic was the true spiritual successor of the type of game that Outcast wanted to be, open world but diverse and mostly hand crafted, very detailed and condensed, offering meaningful gameplay choices and the unlikely hero as a protagonist. So, there you have it, Outcast, a staple in open world gaming, combining action with an interesting story and without a doubt a classic (that hasn't aged that badly) you need to try.
