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Tags: Chris Keenan; InXile Entertainment; Wasteland 2
It's been almost three months since we learned that inXile would be releasing a comprehensive "balance pass" for Wasteland 2. We have gotten two patches since then, but nothing that you could call a "balance pass", and some people have begun to get skeptical. Well, today's Kickstarter update reveals why things may be taking longer than expected. Wasteland 2 is due to get not just a balance pass, but also an improved character system and an engine upgrade.
It's been almost three months since we learned that inXile would be releasing a comprehensive "balance pass" for Wasteland 2. We have gotten two patches since then, but nothing that you could call a "balance pass", and some people have begun to get skeptical. Well, today's Kickstarter update reveals why things may be taking longer than expected. Wasteland 2 is due to get not just a balance pass, but also an improved character system and an engine upgrade.
Part of the newfound freedom we’ve gained from being an exclusively crowdfunded company is that it allows us to offer a high level of post-release support. While this is normal practice for an active multiplayer game, we believe that the ongoing improvements to the single player experience in Wasteland 2 are worth the time and money. The game truly continues to be a passion project for the team here at inXile.
And we’re not done yet…
If you've been keeping a close eye on things, you might have heard tell that we're looking at doing some more balancing and improvements of Wasteland 2 in the future. We have expanded our original plan and decided that this is going to be a part of something much larger for all our fans.
In pursuit of this goal, one task we're working on right now is migrating the Wasteland 2 codebase from the Unity 4.5 engine to Unity 5, which will enable some new possibilities for us. A major benefit of moving to Unity 5 is that 5 will include many of the tools from Unity 4.x Pro. We relied on many of these tools during our development (like creating and building navigation meshes), and they will be available to modders without having to pay thousands of dollars for a Pro Unity license. There is no doubt that this migration will allow us to release better tools for modding to our community in the future.
So what’s the “something bigger” that I teased earlier? Let’s just say that the Orange County lifestyle might be getting to us as the game will be receiving a facelift. Unity 5 offers physically based shading, which is already starting to look amazing in the scenes we’ve touched up.
As well as visual improvements, we have quite a few quirky tricks up our sleeves. The character system is getting perked up and will include some new elements to modify gameplay. Of course, more details will be released in the future so stay tuned!
"Perked up", eh? Whatever could that mean?And we’re not done yet…
If you've been keeping a close eye on things, you might have heard tell that we're looking at doing some more balancing and improvements of Wasteland 2 in the future. We have expanded our original plan and decided that this is going to be a part of something much larger for all our fans.
In pursuit of this goal, one task we're working on right now is migrating the Wasteland 2 codebase from the Unity 4.5 engine to Unity 5, which will enable some new possibilities for us. A major benefit of moving to Unity 5 is that 5 will include many of the tools from Unity 4.x Pro. We relied on many of these tools during our development (like creating and building navigation meshes), and they will be available to modders without having to pay thousands of dollars for a Pro Unity license. There is no doubt that this migration will allow us to release better tools for modding to our community in the future.
So what’s the “something bigger” that I teased earlier? Let’s just say that the Orange County lifestyle might be getting to us as the game will be receiving a facelift. Unity 5 offers physically based shading, which is already starting to look amazing in the scenes we’ve touched up.
As well as visual improvements, we have quite a few quirky tricks up our sleeves. The character system is getting perked up and will include some new elements to modify gameplay. Of course, more details will be released in the future so stay tuned!
Also, the team experimenting with Unity 5 means they will have more experience with the engine (so if they decide to base The Bard's Tale IV on it, they will need to learn less) - and the 5th version of it is looking pretty good, with better lighting, physically based shading and stuff.
