OUTCAST - A NEW BEGINNING
Reviving a classic calls for something out of this world
THE mission
Despite being a sequel to 1999’s genre-defining Outcast, Cutter Slade’s newest adventure needed to be treated like a new IP. Instead of banking on the original’s cult following, the game had to excite modern action-adventure gamers. I embarked on a mission of max awareness and education, breaking down the boundary to entry and giving gamers a reason to visit Adelpha for the first time.
THE CAmpaign
To introduce Cutter Slade, the Talans, and Adelpha’s varied flora and fauna to unaware gamers, I knew our strategy would need to be heavily data-focused, propping up a suite of distinct, entertaining assets that reflected the game’s unique tone. With a demo planned shortly before launch, maximising onboarding would be crucial to allow as many gamers as possible to try the game for themselves.
Being the marketing lead on the project meant becoming a constant evangelist for Outcast - A New Beginning, pushing for partner opportunities wherever possible, and never taking any exposure for granted. Partner support would play a key factor, with regular pitching for PlayStation Blog coverage and submitting every video asset to first party channels front of mind.
As with Alone in the Dark, a strong relationship with creative agency We Are Reach meant that assets could be produced reactively and speedily, with multiple pieces in production at once. Building out from a core of excellent trailers produced by the talented video team at THQ Nordic, we were able to create assets aimed at particular audience segments, including more explicitly humourous pieces such as a nature documentary narrated by a Sir David Attenborough soundalike, a guide to Talan etiquette, and Cutter’s bumbling attempts at taking Father’s Day selfies.
With a lot of ground to cover across our target audience, efficiency was the watchword for all strands of the campaign. Partnering with Generation Media for all paid media outside of programmatic, their clearly defined audience profiles allowed us to achieve high impact without compromising on scale.
Amongst a catalogue of bookings that smashed through KPI benchmarks, out standout content piece was a partnership with IGN Entertainment, which sent a figurine of the game’s mascot creature, the Saï, into space. With a video on their main YouTube channel, an on-site article, and non-disruptive callbacks to the game throughout the piece, the IGN and Generation teams created a relevant, visually stunning content piece that produced strong performance in line with the rest of the campaign’s goals.
THE RESULTS
Highly targeted programmatic video, countdown static assets, video assets, and content creator bookings dedicated to the demo led to it reaching the top 40 in the Steam Next Fest. The console demo saw tremendous pickup across PlayStation, in particular, thanks to global on-console posts secured via pitching.
This evangelism continued to pay dividends, leading to 14 different trailers (27 posts in total) being rehosted by first party partners, generating over 1,250,000 earned video views on their channels alone. I also secured and wrote a PlayStation Blog, leading to two posts on PlayStation’s owned socials (shortly before and on release day), driving more than 1,000,000 further social views for the game.
Working closely with THQ Nordic’s content creator manager and agency Player4, we achieved over 540,000 hours watched across earned and paid creators during the pre-launch and release period.
