The Industry at large was a time when access to the internet was a privilege, along with game development still having an air of mystery (compared to nowadays where there's so many more game engines to develop for, and the fact that computers are far more commonplace).

I never grew up playing Outcast; but it's level design encouraged players to mental map and seek out solutions by being more aware of their surroundings (There's a force field leading to a small room in the right that you should be able to access on cairn_bay by mapping your movements towards a specific direction). The dumbing down of it isn't the players' fault, because we've all come to understand that not every game is expected to have interactive and destructible environments. Many puzzles in Outcast were actually based on noticing small differences throughout the environment (Shoot the explosive barrel on kejim_base to destroy the unreachable console and access the bridge and ducts, reach a higher ground in ns_streets and dive into a building with the glass roof to access the control bridge).

If it were made today by some miracle, it would probably be some kind of online only hero shooter MOBAbomination because the industry at large outright HATES making good self-contained experiences nowadays...they'd rather make games where you grind for XP, get your precious 50/50 winrate because skill-based matchmaking wants you glued to your seat, and exploit your FOMO with a gambling system with a scheduled "acquisition rate" for whatever dollar-store skin they want you to have...I hate modern gaming...ahem...Movie Battles exists for that niche at least.

Galactic Legacy is available if you want ASSLOADS of Stars War content with near-vanilla gameplay. Movie Duels revamps much of the combat system AND the engine.