You take on the role of a Troubleshooter: someone whose job is to deal with any problems in Alpha Complex that may require a more personal touch than Friend Computers many drones and servo-arms are able to provide. In our demo, this meant investigating why one of the maintenance bots in a sub-basement level was behaving oddly.

It turned out that a group of Traitors - the designation given to anyone in the Alpha Complex facility that does not follow the rules or remain Happy™ - had sealed off a few rooms in the sub-basement to use as their personal LARP-ing grounds (they'd even reprogrammed security bots to shout "Lightning Bolt!" as they fire their lasers), and it was up to us and our three crew members to clear them out.

Combat in Paranoia is real-time, but you can pause the action whenever you like for as long as you want to give your squad of four commands, sending them to cover, attacking specific enemies or making use of their unique specializations. For example, while your Cleanliness Officer might be able to use disinfecting chemical to deal acid damage, or your Happiness Officer (basically the logical and horrifying extrapolation of Big Pharma and Social Media) could buff your team with psychotropic drugs.

What's interesting is that rather than failing and restarting a mission upon death with a different skill loadout, HiM features a unique take on permadeath. Friend Computer understands that accidents happen, and as such has issued Troubleshooters with a bank of clones that are activated upon a unit's accidental termination (or an intentional one, depending on your actions). What's interesting is that each time you activate a clone, you're able to re-spec your skills and attribute points, effectively creating a new character every time you die. Friend Computer only provides six clones that can be re-spec'd, though, so you'll have to choose wisely if you don't want to get stuck with a skill set you don't want. I'm told, however, that there may be a certain geneticist somewhere in Alpha Complex that could help with that - if you've got funds and are willing to risk the demerits...

Of course, it wouldn't be called "Paranoia" without good reason. While your team members may be under your control during combat and missions, they are very much not your team members. Even though your jobs will take you into areas where Friend Computer's scanners don't work, that doesn't mean your team members won't inform Friend Computer of any misdeeds you commit while on a mission. For example, when we found ourselves at a locked door, our tech expert suggested that I hack a nearby vending machine to gain access to the local network and unlock the door. It was a good idea, so I did - and the little weasel ratted me out as soon as we got back upstairs, which caused my Treason Level (a percent rating system that every citizen has indicating how concerned Friend Computer is with their Happiness™) to increase and change my citizen rating from Questionable to Suspicious.

We didn't see much of Alpha Complex beyond the couple of floors we visited, but the little bit of the world it showed us did a great job playing with this notion of omnipotence and mistrust, and how you have to deal with it. Wherever your character goes, security cameras track your every move - even the Friend Computer icon at the top of the screen (it lets you know when you're in view of its cameras) follows the motion of your mouse cursor with eerie, silent malice.

Though I only experienced a small portion Paranoia's world, I was immediately hooked by its witty take on the "robots gone awry" genre, and can't wait to see how my exploits play out depending on my choices. Will I splinter off from the other citizens to join a secret society and overthrow FC? Or will I remain a steadfast and Happy™ agent of Friend Computer's ruthlessly intelligent design? Happiness may be mandatory, but participation is entirely voluntary - and I'll gladly be throwing on my read overalls later this year.
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Game Informer
IGN
PCWorld
Rock Paper Shotgun
Screen Rant
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A Postcard Arrives
E3 is upon us—that special time of year when you learn about new games, or more about the games you’re most excitedly waiting for. We’re happy to be delivering some of the latter, with a new, pre-Alpha look at Wasteland 3 from an old pal and returning character from Wasteland 2. We’d love to hear your thoughts.

In addition to the return of Scotchmo and an extended look at the post-nuclear landscape of Colorado, we’re announcing a new launch window of Spring 2020. That’s down to the fact that, thanks to our relationship with Microsoft, we’re able to hire more staff and spend more time realizing our vision for Wasteland 3. All in all it means a little more time to get things right and deliver the experience we want, and the one we know you expect.

We also have new screenshots to share over on our Wasteland 3 page on the inXile site so you can get a closer look at some of locations glimpsed at in the video.

Alpha, Early Access and Release
We’re pleased to announce two more release windows; ones we’re asked about almost as often as when the game itself is coming out.

Our backer Alpha will arrive August, 2019 to those who pledged in the First Access and higher tiers. Early Access (sometimes referred to as Beta) will be arriving in late Fall, 2019, and is for all backer tiers with the exception of the Correspondent tier.

The Alpha will be a first opportunity to play around with many of the game’s different systems in a guided experience, with the Early Access providing a bigger chunk of the game to check out. In both cases, they’ll be your opportunity to provide us with feedback that we can use to help make the final game that much better for everyone.

As mentioned above—but it bears repeating—our launch target for the full game release is now Spring 2020.

One Last Treat
Finally, we wanted to leave you with one last treat. We’re happy we were able to reveal Scotchmo’s triumphant return in the E3 trailer, and wanted to share a look at how we’re bringing Scotchmo back for Wasteland 3. show how the character originally evolved in Wasteland 2, the iteration work he went through in early production, and finally an extended video snippet of a player conversation with him. Again, please remember that everything you see, from graphics to audio to UI, are all pre-Alpha.

And here’s an extended look at the model, animation, and VO for Scotchmo. The dialog UI is very much temp in this video, but provides an example of the type of dialog options you might see in the final game. Our artists want to reiterate that this is of course an early look with temp UI, in-progress lighting, model, and everything else. However, we'd still love to hear your feedback!

Thank you again for your backing and support of the game. We couldn’t have gotten this far without you. We’ll see you again soon with some more Wasteland 3 goodies, including drill-downs on some of the core gameplay pillars and systems. Stay tuned!
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News from the front:

- Progress on the portraits and animations is still slow. Meet generic combat NPC 05 and 06. The helmets and goggles reflect the in-game headgear models. Ivan finished tweaking the rifles animations, going over the pistol animations now (over 200 animations).

- Programming and design are right on schedule, which is a lot more important as I'd rather wait for portraits and animations than for the programming tasks to be completed.

- Scott and I are working on dialogues for the side quests; I hope to have all the quests and dialogues for the Pit ready by the end of the month. Random snippets:

* * *

“What can I get you?” The bartender has spotted you looking over the assortment of unlabeled, plastic gallon jugs, each with its own unappealing liquid in some shade of brown. “We got Gutwarmer, Rat Poison, High Voltage, Firewater, and Absolution. Special on the Rat Poison right now, every third round is free for as long as you're able to drink it.”

* * *
Three men stand silently about a portable heater, the Ship equivalent of the frontier campfire, minus the good cheer.

“Do you have it?” the man in charge says in a voice hoarse and low. The left side of his face is disfigured with gruesome, saucer-sized scars, like vicious sucker marks. From one of these rippled craters, the angry orange light of an ocular implant is doing duty for a missing eye. You suppress a shudder thinking about the tentacle that must have delivered that kiss. Everyone’s heard the stories, of course, but you felt better telling yourself they were exaggerated.

1. Continue.

Chance hurriedly yanks a dusty old control module from his belt bag and passes it to Scarface. The Granger glances down at it, no more than a quick take, then tosses it to ground.

“What’s the deal?” asks Chance, his righteous indignation more than slightly overplayed. “You wanted a tower control module, I brought you a tower control module. Now where’s my money? I got shit to do.” He cuts his eyes at you, both in a naked appeal for support and to give himself a break from looking at his mark.

Scarface isn’t looking at Chance anymore, though. His implant is giving you a hard stare, and you’re guessing it’s not interested in your haircut. Judging by the design, it’s military hardware, already locked in and analyzing its target.

1. “The money, like he said. Best if you don't make us ask again.”
2. “What if I can get this module for you?”
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Meet with the self-proclaimed protector of Golarion, and discover what secrets lie buried beneath the Stolen Lands, in a shifting labyrinth of madness where nothing is what it seems, complete with dangerous enemies to battle and ancient treasures to unearth. Defend the lands against one of the most deadly enemies the world has ever faced.

• Enter a massive dungeon with a party made from scratch. Begin your adventure to the Tenebrous Depths with a party of newly created characters. Start the game from the main menu and experience the descent into an endless rogue-like dungeon.
• Explore the near-infinite possibilities of building a Pathfinder character. Try out different builds to perfect your tactics at your leisure. Create a band of adventurers able to overcome any danger!
• Defeat is but a new beginning! Dying in an encounter enables additional benefits for your next playthrough.
• Unlock new items to buy across multiple playthoughs. The number of item slots nearby traders have depends on how far you have been able to descend during all of your previous forays combined.
• ...or enter the dungeon as your main character. Alternatively, you can wait for an invitation from a mysterious protector of Golarion as you play through the Main Story. The preset version of the dungeon is included into the main campaign, allowing you to use your character and companions to conquer the Tenebrous Depths.

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In the weeks since the last update, we’ve been hard at work designing quests and locations. And to make sure that our quests are as good as they can be and offer the highest possible degree of reactivity towards the player character, we’ve also improved our dialogue system and added a handful of new features to it.

In this update, we’re going to show you the new features of the dialogue system, as well as screenshots of some beautiful new locations we’ve added to the world of Argea. The section of the update that shows off the dialogue tool will contain minor spoilers for early content in the game, as well as a side quest later in the game. If you wish to avoid such spoilers, please take note of the warnings and skip ahead.

In an RPG, it is important that the game recognizes the player’s character build. And since Realms Beyond allows the player to create (or to recruit) a party of six characters, a diverse party should mean that NPCs react differently to each of them. Different characters should also be able to react differently to NPC statements. While most characters might agree with the assessment that orcs are savage barbarians, a half-orc character might object to such a statement.

Dialogue options can depend on many things: the player character’s gender, race, class, ability scores, skills, equipment, current status effects, faction reputation, and more. If you want to find a peaceful solution with the orcs, letting your half-orc do the talking might be a good idea. Similarly, in a village where everyone is prejudiced towards elves because of an old grudge that has never been forgotten, an elven or half-elven character will have a harder time winning the sympathies of the populace.

[...] During your travels through Argea, you will come upon several wizards living in solitary towers, dedicated to their research. One of these wizards, a man named Obalor, tells you about his rivalry with a fellow sorceress named Jeralis. Many years ago, she lost her eyes in an accident, and went on to craft a pair of enchanted emeralds to return her sight. Wizards all across the realm have wondered how she fashioned that enchantment, and Obalor is determined to find it out. He hires the player party to take Jeralis’ emerald eyes and bring them to him, so he can examine the enchantment and learn his rival’s technique.

If the player accepts the quest, he must travel to Jeralis’ tower and get his hands on her emerald eyes. One way to do this is to engage her in dialogue and convince her that he himself is an arcane researcher and interested in studying the enchantment. Jeralis isn’t opposed to borrowing her eyes to someone interested in the workings of their enchantment, but the player’s character doesn’t quite strike her as a magical researcher.

This is where more complex conditions come in. If the player’s character is a highly intelligent wizard, he (or she) can easily convince her of being a researcher himself. If the player’s character is a wizard, but has only average rather than exceptional intelligence for his class, he’ll have to bluff a little to make her believe him. And if the player’s character is not a wizard, he’ll have to bluff a lot.

Our scripting system allows us to make dialogue checks as complex as we need them to be for any given quest situation. We can check the player character’s gender, race and class. We can check the player character’s attributes and skills. We can check the player’s equipment, and whether she’s wearing something on an equipment slot at all: a guard might demand your character take her helmet off before she enters the throne room, as it would be rude to enter the royal chambers with a covered head. It is as simple as checking for the condition of BAREHEADED being false.

This powerful scripting system allows us to recognize any state a player character may be in, and have NPCs acknowledge everything that is appropriate for them to comment on (like a dwarf reacting favorably toward a fellow dwarf and skeptically toward an elf, a priestess mentioning you should take your boots off before you enter the inner sanctum, a merchant greeting you as a colleague because your character is a member of the merchants’ guild, etc). It also allows for creative quest solutions. Let’s imagine a magic mirror that guards a magically locked door. You can interact with it, but looking into it doesn’t do anything. In another chamber of the dungeon you find out that the door only opens for those who stare into the mirror with blinded eyes – you can cast a spell of blinding upon your character, interact with the mirror while the BLIND condition is true, and the door will open!

As for the quest to get Jeralis’ emerald eyes – there are approaches other than asking her and bluffing, such as intimidation, combat and stealth, but how exactly those can be pulled off is up to you to find out when you play the game! Our quests generally offer at least two possible solutions, usually more. Every player will have a different party and follow a different playstyle, so we try to add multiple solutions and decisions to each quest to offer a large amount of choice to the player – and, of course, a high degree of replayability.
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SKALD: Against the Black Priory is a tile and turn based roleplaying game where you lead a party of up to six characters on an epic and perilous quest.

The game features:

• Vintage graphics using the glorious Commodore 64 color palette
• Complex level-based character development with abilities, skills and features
• Grindless tactical combat
• "Choose-your-own-adventure" system and dynamic, tree based dialog.

As a party based RPG, SKALD puts heavy emphasis on both roleplaying- and mechanical interaction between party members.

The current leader of the party can be swapped by the push of a button and the skills and abilities of the current leader will influence interactions with the game world. But be warned: Managing the party can be challenging with members having private agendas and motivations.

Combat in SKALD is turn- and menu-based. This leads to fast and grind-less combat (that can be automated). The design emphasis is on having interactions between abilities, tactics and situational circumstances create unique and challenging combat every time.

The game will feature a rich and highly interactive world with both scripted and systemic ways of interacting with the hundreds of NPCs, items, objects and plot points. The game will allow for, and encourage, a large range of player expression and roleplaying.

Interacting with the world takes place through tree-based dialog, "choose-you-own-adventure sequences", combat, tile-based exploration and interaction with in-game systems.

SKALD: Against the Black Priory will feature level-based character development with both numerical stats and special abilities. I also intend for roleplaying choices to affect character development by taking a leaf from classics such as Fallout 1 and 2.

As a game of dark, gritty fantasy, magic is a huge part of the world building. It will play a huge part of the game and designing a system that is both mechanically and narratively appealing is a challenge I can't wait to dig into! More on that down the line.

The game will release on PC (Windows) first with releases for Mac and handheld devices down the line. NOTE: Backer rewards are PC only.

Estimated release date is June 2020.​

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