THQ Nordic Showcase Features Outcast Reboot, Giant Enemy Crab

Summer is waning, but we still had at least one more publisher showcase in store. THQ Nordic held its own presentation, showing off, among other games, a reboot of the cult 1999 game Outcast, a sequel to the dungeon crawler Titan Quest, and a cute sandbox management game with Pikmin vibes.

The showcase began with the debut of Outcast: A New Beginning, a slight rebrand of its previously announced plans to make an Outcast 2. This was our first look at the new game, in which ex-Navy Seal Cutter Slade gets caught up in a fierce war between native Talans and faceless invaders on the planet Adelpha. The gameplay demonstration showed off exploring the open world using a jetpack and managing your equipment with a highly modular weapon system.

THQ emphasized that this open world is about living in harmony with nature and exploring at your own pace, which in practice means building up the Talan society and nurturing the alien life, rather than climbing towers to unlock waypoints. The flying and hovering gameplay looked reminiscent of Dark Void, and THQ says its art style aims to evoke sci-fi movies and comic books from the 1980s and ’90s. It uses Unreal Engine 4, and will launch on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S.

Another major game in the lineup, Titan Quest 2, began with a cinematic trailer that shared more than a few similarities with the tone of Diablo. Likewise, the top-down action-RPG gameplay looked similar, though like the first game, it’s centered around Greek mythology. It will feature online multiplayer and THQ says it wants to make its character system flexible and offer meaningful loot. And in what we can only assume was a fun wink, it showed a giant enemy crab as an example of a larger-than-life boss.

The presentation also featured an update on Space for Sale. The sandbox management sim has you play as a cute little astronaut as you develop property on desolate planetscapes. Your spaceman is tiny compared to the enemies, like a giant octopus-like alien, and you’ll have direct control for placing items and managing your property. It’s a PC exclusive, and closed beta sign-ups are now available.