The Outsider – Xbox 360, PS3
The Outsider – Xbox 360, PS3
Frontier, the games developer headed by the legendary David Braben, have announced its first new game for next-gen consoles – The Outsider.
Frontier has been focussing on new game-play elements that are now made possible by the new consoles and emphasise the improved graphics aren’t what make a next-gen game a next-gen game. Frontier have been developing new technologies for some time which will make their debut in The Outsider helping to bring the sort of freedom of action first seen in Elite to the new consoles.
Frontier claim that The Outside will enrich the player's experience by abandoning the traditional, prescriptive, mostly linear story of current generation games and replace it by simulating characters' motivations and aims. This will give the player genuine freedom to change the story outcomes in a way not been seen before. If Frontier pull this off, it means each player will get a unique, and Frontier claim, a sophisticated, visceral experience rather than simply choosing one path or another. The techniques used are now possible using the greatly increased processing power available to the PS3 and Xbox 360.
So on to the game itself. The Outsider is being touted as a gripping, high-tech thriller played out against the backdrop of a living, crowded city based on present-day Washington DC and its environs including the CIA HQ at Langley, Andrews Air Force Base and Newport News Naval Dockyard. As a CIA operative the player will have a large arsenal of technology, combat talents and weaponry available to him. Frontier are claiming that a shocking opening scenario wrongly makes your character Public Enemy Number One in the eyes of the media and the public at large, but still leaves many different ways to proceed: to wreak ultra-violent revenge, to turn the tables and exploit the shady organisations he is mixed up with for his own ends or crusading to clear his name.
Said David Braben, Chairman and Founder of Frontier:
"The new games consoles like Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 offer a massive opportunity in the future of gaming. One of the comparisons I like to make is with the film industry – we're at the stage that the film industry was at in 1930, where people had started to tire of effects driven 'car-on-a-train-track' films and wanted something more, just as technology and budgets greatly increased to bring in the golden age of Alfred Hitchcock, Orson Wells and many others. A golden age of games is now just around the corner, and I believe 'The Outsider' is one of the first of these."
