Wasteland Wasteland 3 Pre-Release Thread [GO TO NEW THREAD]

[Infinitron]

https://fextralife.com/wasteland-3-preview-rocky-mountain-high-caliber/

Wasteland 3 Preview: Rocky Mountain High Caliber

InXile announced Wasteland 3 a good while back, and like Biomutant it’s another title that quietly slipped out of the limelight over the past couple of years. However, we’ve being playing the Alpha of the game for the past few days, and in this article I want to tell you a bit about what you can expect, and what we think about it so far. Bundle up because it’s cold as ice where we’re going!

Vehicular Manslaughter
Perhaps one of the more interesting additions to the Wasteland franchise is the implementation of vehicle transport. Players will no longer traverse the world map as just a marker, but will now drive around in a suped up ATV of sorts on the overworld map. This makes traveling a bit more fun, but also adds a new dynamic to the game’s combat, because the vehicle gets a turn during encounters and can attack using its weapons. This vehicle can also store supplies for the player’s squad. It isn’t clear whether or not there are more than one vehicle in the game, but I strongly suspect there are not from what I have seen so far.

Divinity & XCOM Had a Baby
Wasteland 3’s combat is very very similar to Wasteland 2, and those that have played the prequel will be accumulated to it nearly instantly. The combat of the game is turn-based, and uses an Action Point system that’s very similar to Divinity Original Sin. Moving, attacking, using Abilities and reloading all cost various amounts of AP, that will regulate what a character can do each round. The amount of AP each character has is determined by their Stats, and can change through out the game.

Wasteland 3 also draws from XCOM, because there is a cover system that features full and half cover, which protects characters from damage. Players can use Ambush, which functions much like Overwatch, allowing for the character to attack during the enemies’ turn if they move into their line of site. Additionally your entire team will get a turn and then the enemy, and then your team, then the enemy etc. You can determine what order you want to use your characters in on your turn, and part of each encounter is optimizing this.

Two Is Better Than One
Probably the most anticipated new feature of Wasteland 3 is cooperative play. You and a friend can now take on the Wasteland together, each controlling your own squad. Have no friends? That’s fine too, as you can find others to play with online. This is the most compelling part of Wasteland 3. If I’m totally honest, the game looks nicer than Wasteland 2, but doesn’t play much differently. This is good news for the franchise, the multiplayer element should draw more players to the game, and allow existing fans to experience it in a whole new way.

Very little information is known on exactly how the multiplayer features will work, but it is possible to make totally independent decisions from your partner, allowing for some interesting scenarios. For example, maybe you promised to save some people missing from a village, but your friend wipes them all out because he didn’t know that’s what you decided. Shit then proceeds to hit the fan, and you get to deal with the fallout (pardon the pun). I can’t wait to see how that all pans out, and look forward to stirring up some shit.

Final Thoughts
The allure of the Wasteland franchise has always been character customization, with a very deep RPG system, that is reminiscent of the old Fallout games. This extends its life by providing a reason to play again and again. With so many different builds possible, you can really experience the game a different way with a different setup, and when the gameplay and story telling is good you really want to.

Dialogue options play a huge role in Wasteland 3, and players will have a multitude of ways they can respond to various scenarios. This goes hand and hand with the above, as there are many avenues you can take to resolve quests, and you will not be able to experience but a fraction of them unless you play through a few times. This is because you won’t meet the requirements for many dialogue options, and will need a differently skilled character in order to use them.

Wasteland 3 is due out sometime next spring, and we’ll bring you more coverage as we get a little bit closer to launch. Next up for us is Tokyo Game Show where we’ll be seeing Nioh 2 and an unannounced title from Koei Tecmo that they’ve assured us we’ll want to see.

 

[Goral]

Looks better than I thought, vehicles were great in Fallout Tactics and if they will be as fun in W3 as they were there it will be awesome. There's also power armour (called nuclear armour) and what's more armours are in parts allowing for more combinations. Fights also seem somewhat improved allowing us to use the terrain and surroundings a bit more (we can thank Larian for that). We'll see how it will play out but so far I'm pleasantly surprised, it might just be even better than Wasteland 2 (which I've enjoyed playing).



After Cyberpunk/Bloodlines fiasco it's the only non-indie game that's worth watching (oh, and there's Outer Worlds too). I'm really glad that inXile at least hasn't abandoned TB combat (Larian will probably do it with BG 3 and Obsidian doesn't care about it).

 

[Zombra]

"Accumulated"? Did they mean "acclimated"?

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Everything coming out lately looks pretty good, which makes the awful E3 trailer even harder to understand.

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

Someone just can't do trailers, what is to understand there?

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Looks better than I thought, vehicles were great in Fallout Tactics and if they will be as fun in W3 as they were there it will be awesome. There's also power armour (called nuclear armour) and what's more armours are in parts allowing for more combinations. Fights also seem somewhat improved allowing us to use the terrain and surroundings a bit more (we can thank Larian for that). We'll see how it will play out but so far I'm pleasantly surprised, it might just be even better than Wasteland 2 (which I've enjoyed playing).



After Cyberpunk/Bloodlines fiasco it's the only non-indie game that's worth watching (oh, and there's Outer Worlds too). I'm really glad that inXile at least hasn't abandoned TB combat (Larian will probably do it with BG 3 and Obsidian doesn't care about it).

The UI looks out of place for a wasteland game.

 

[jf8350143]

It's the E3, they are trying to appeal the people there, and those people don't care about cRPG. So they change the style and tries something new.

 

[Sacibengala]

That is the only Inxile game that I did not backed. And also the first one backed by Microsoft. I believe if this game turns out to be any good, it is obviously because of me not giving money to them. You're welcome, Inxile.

 

[Roguey]

The UI looks out of place for a wasteland game.

It took a bunch of tries for inXile to make a UI that still looked like crap, so this time they didn't bother and went with the same minimalist style everyone else uses.

 

[Ivan]

"Accumulated"? Did they mean "acclimated"?

they say acclimated..

 

[santino27]

"Accumulated"? Did they mean "acclimated"?

they say acclimated..

They mean acclimated but said accumulated.

 

[razvedchiki]

When will the time cometh oh lord when the new xcom will not be namedropped in every turn based game,jesus christ all mighty.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

When will the time cometh oh lord when the new xcom will not be namedropped in every turn based game,jesus christ all mighty.

That'll take very long time.
Tactical game drought of late 00's ensures that lot of people see nuXCOM as birther of the genre.

 

[ShadowSpectre]

Wasteland 3 is shaping up to look surprisingly much better than expected after the money ran out for InXile. The Microsoft buyout may not be the worst thing to happen, although it is contradictory to the whole fan money-raising/no publisher pulling strings ideal they started with. Still, of all the RPGs that are supposed to be releasing at the same time next year, this one looks the best. Kind of scary, but fuck it. I liked Wasteland 2 and this looks like a better version.

 

[The Dutch Ghost]

That'll take very long time.
Tactical game drought of late 00's ensures that lot of people see nuXCOM as birther of the genre.

Yep, many "gamers" of today don't think that a lot of game genres existed before the Xbox generation.

Wasteland 3 is shaping up to look surprisingly much better than expected after the money ran out for InXile. The Microsoft buyout may not be the worst thing to happen, although it is contradictory to the whole fan money-raising/no publisher pulling strings ideal they started with.

Seems to be the popular gimmick or trend at the time and I admit that I fell for it, but now that Kickstarter style crowd funding has passed its high point it is back to business as usual.

Hmm, someone please give me a quick summary, did Inxile run out of money because they used one kickstarter to fund another project? I haven't followed news on the company for a while now.

 

[Infinitron]

Hmm, someone please give me a quick summary, did Inxile run out of money because they used one kickstarter to fund another project? I haven't followed news on the company for a while now.

We don't have any hard facts about inXile's financial state before the Microsoft buyout, but having two games in a row (Torment and Bard's Tale IV) flop horribly can't have been good for them.

 

[The Dutch Ghost]

Hmm, someone please give me a quick summary, did Inxile run out of money because they used one kickstarter to fund another project? I haven't followed news on the company for a while now.

We don't have any hard facts about inXile's financial state before the Microsoft buyout, but having two games in a row (Torment and Bard's Tale IV) flop horribly can't have been good for them.

Ah thanks for the response.

 

[Infinitron]

Long interview with lead area designer Jeremy Kopman: https://venturebeat.com/2019/09/02/...pocalypse-cant-kill-the-one-percent/view-all/

Some new details here.

Wasteland 3: Even the apocalypse can’t kill the One Percent

Jeremy Kopman joined InXile Entertainment during what I consider the most exciting time in its history — the crowdfunding chapter. He signed on shortly after the Kickstarter campaign for Wasteland 2, working on another game that the indie RPG publisher would ask its players to help fund — Torment: Tides of Numenera.

He’s now working on the series that showed InXile (and a host of indie developers) that crowdfunding could indeed be a workable path. He’s the lead level designer for Wasteland 3, the postapocalyptic RPG that InXile is releasing in early 2020 for PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.

And just as he joined at the beginning of a new era for InXile, he’s helping finish it. Wasteland 3 will be the studio’s final game from before 2018’s Microsoft acquisition. Deep Silver is still publishing it. But Wasteland 3 is also the first to benefit from the increased support from one of the biggest game companies in the world.

I spoke with Kopman a couple of weeks ago when he brought a demo of Wasteland 3 to San Francisco. This is an edited transcript of our chat before the demo.

Small studio, big stories
GamesBeat: How long have you been at inXile?

Jeremy Kopman: I started right after the Wasteland 2 crowdfunding campaign. I’ve been here for six and a half, almost seven year.

GamesBeat: What do you like about working there?

Kopman: The freedom that each–even when I was just starting out as a regular level designer, I still had a ton of input on what the levels I was assigned would–the content of those levels, the characters, the writing. I got to contribute to all of that. That’s not something you necessarily have at other studio.

GamesBeat: Especially at bigger studios. Level designers rarely get to do narrative.

Kopman: Right. The benefit of a small studio is you get that many-hats situation. There can be times when it gets busy and stressful, but it’s worth it for the opportunity to really put your mark on the game.

GamesBeat: Did you work on The Bard’s Tale IV?

Kopman: I didn’t. I worked on Torment. Torment — I went from Torment to Wasteland, and Bard’s Tale was kind of bridged between those.

GamesBeat: There’s a little crossover with the themes of Wasteland and the themes of Torment.

Kopman: Somewhat. Although the narrative team was not–there wasn’t as much crossover. Torment, we were starting to work on it well before Wasteland 2 released. There are certain questions, big themes that are attractive because of where we are in the world and all that stuff.

Spoiler

Entering the wastes
GamesBeat: Bring us up to speed a bit on the story. Where is it after the events of Wasteland 2?

Jeremy Kopman: Wasteland 2 ends with a dire situation for the Rangers, where their base is gone. They blew it up in order to destroy the big bad from the last game.

GamesBeat: Which was an AI system.

Kopman: Correct. They’re scraping by in Arizona, just barely surviving, trying to rebuild, when they get a call from someone who calls themself the Patriarch of Colorado. This is a guy who offers money, supplies, weapons, what they need to get back on their feet in Arizona, if they can send a contingent and help him maintain control over this small bastion of civilization that’s been built up.

GamesBeat: Have they gone from Rangers to mercs now?

Kopman: No, it’s not — the proposition isn’t so much, I’ll just pay you to do my fighting for me. It’s, we are of a like mind. We want to maintain order in this wasteland and try to rebuild civilization. I can help you. You help me and we’ll both benefit.

GamesBeat: One of my main takeaways from Wasteland 2 was the dangers of AI. Does that carry over at all in Wasteland 3, considering how AI has become a much bigger part of our lives these days?

Kopman: I think we’re not speaking too much to the broader story of the game yet, but I actually think it’s threaded through the story, and it pops up in interesting places throughout. It’s not a straightforward “AI bad” setup. It is an important part of the world, but the story is more deeply about the Patriarch and these rich survivalist doomsday preppers of Colorado, who put away stores of weapons and food and all this stuff, and when they came out of their bunkers after the nuclear fallout from the war, they were the only people with any resources. They immediately were able to take over.

GamesBeat: I didn’t know doomsday preppers in Colorado were rich.

Kopman: Some small numbers of them are. Those are the ones who had enough resources. They may not have been super-wealthy before the apocalypse, but once they came out, they were the only ones with tons and tons of canned food and huge stockpiles of weapons and that kind of thing. He comes from the Buchanan family, which is one of the 100 families that rules the Colorado Springs area.

GamesBeat: Did you choose that name for any particular reason?

Kopman: I don’t know offhand. It almost certainly has some sort of allusion to the President. That might be–one of the narrative design people might be able to answer that question directly.

GamesBeat: In many RPGs, names are important. They have some significance. Sometimes they don’t, but especially when you draw on names in a game that takes place in an alternate U.S., that’s tied to a name in U.S. history.

[The Wasteland 3 narrative team had this to say about the Saul Buchanan, the Patriarch:

“Saul” was meant to evoke a troubled king-figure whose reign is faltering, an allusion to the Biblical Saul, obviously. For his last name, we wanted a classically American, preferably presidential name, so we looked back through the 19th century presidents and picked out Buchanan – not because of anything specifically related to James Buchanan, just because the name had the right feel to it. The Patriarch himself uses American imagery to give himself a sense of legitimacy, so that sort of name felt right.

Note that all the Hundred Families – the aristocracy of Colorado – have names that are meant to evoke 19th century America –even the non-Anglo names were present in the U.S. during that time.]

No AI needed
GamesBeat: When it comes to AI, this is a very different question. More game studios use AI to help make their games, whether it’s the placement of elements, checking on bugs, and so on. Does inXile use AI in any way to help make their games?

Kopman: Not really? We’re trying to build a visually very polished, modern-looking game, but the way we make a game is still very old-school, I would say. All that narrative reactivity that’s part of Wasteland 2 and will be a big part of Wasteland 3, it’s all handled by designers manually figuring out — OK, we need to set this variable here, this variable there, and then check it over in this spot. It’s a lot of work, but it’s the way that we can get the most natural–that human work is still the best way to get that kind of reactivity.

GamesBeat: Is it hard to use AI generation with a structured RPG?

Kopman: There could be ways to do it to help with some of the systems side of things, but that’s not really the inXile style. We like to have a hand in everything and make sure it’s what we want.

Post-Microsoft
GamesBeat: How has the development of Wasteland 3 changed after the Microsoft deal?

Kopman: We got some more time and a bunch more resources. We’ve been able to step up the visual quality. We were able to fully lock in on full voiceover for all dialogue in the game. It’s not a small amount of V/O. Those things were not opportunities we had before the Microsoft acquisition. It’s really opened up some of those avenues.

GamesBeat: As a design department lead, when you first heard of that, what did you think?

Kopman: We were pretty well into development on Wasteland 3. The structure of the story, the structure of the levels, was relatively well set. We were still iterating on everything. As we speak there’s designers still coming up with stuff and adding things to the game. But it definitely made it more comfortable. We knew the stuff we’d been planning in our heads — we could actually pull it off.

GamesBeat: Does the addition of more sets of eyes also help — here’s something you missed, you should fix this or do it this other way?

Kopman: Yeah, it gives us the opportunity to do some stuff — bringing in people who have a lot of experience. Microsoft has UX experts that can look at the game and say, here, these are some ways to tweak things to make sure that the experience flows better. That kind of insight is something that would have been harder. You can hire consultants for that stuff, but inXile wasn’t in a position to do that, necessarily. Now we have quick access to that stuff.

GamesBeat: Now that Obsidian is also under the Microsoft umbrella, can you two cooperate and say, you know, we’re having trouble here, how have you guys done with this in the past?

Kopman: I don’t think that’s come up yet. I think because they’re working on — they were well into Outer Worlds and we were well into Wasteland 3. We’re all head-down. I’m not sure if that’s going to happen in the future. I can’t really speak to that. But I know that — the ability to get — Microsoft has been able to offer us lots of resources and information-sharing and stuff. I think we’re all hopeful that that kind of thing can happen, but we haven’t experienced yet. It hasn’t been relevant to the projects yet.

The One Percent
GamesBeat: What does the Son of the Patriach mean for Wasteland 3?

Kopman: The overarching quest line of the game is that the Patriarch has three children, who have all rebelled and gone off to be differently nefarious. He wants you to bring them back to Colorado Springs, where his capital is, so that he can put them back under hell and prevent them from trying to grab power out from under him. You’re searching for each kid throughout the rest of the game.

GamesBeat: Who’s this one we’re chasing after?

Kopman: You’re chasing after Victory Buchanan, shortened to Vic. He’s the most outwardly sinister of the children. He’s gone off and –basically he’s known among the people of Colorado Springs as a psychopath. He’s violent and sadistic. He’s formed this gang called the Breathers that follows him and are dedicated to him because he helps provide these drugs that constantly keep them in an altered state.

GamesBeat: As in many science fiction stories where you drug out your soldiers so they perform better.

Kopman: In this case it’s partly that, but they’re not necessarily pliant. They’re just sort of nuts. They’re all just as violent and sadistic as him. It’s a very unpredictable group. You get to, in the full game, learn more about them, but in the demo they’re pretty much some baddies you’ll be fighting.

GamesBeat: But because of those breather masks and armor they’re wearing, they also look scary. Story-wise, that must have some effect on the populace?

Kopman: I don’t actually think it’s super-clear in the demo, but what you’ll learn in the full game is, the area they’ve taken over is Aspen in Colorado, and like in the current real world, Aspen is basically a resort town where the rich people from Colorado Springs go off to have their parties. They all have ski chalets up there. Vic and his Breathers, who are hiding out even higher in the mountains, have come in and kidnapped or murdered everybody in Aspen. You’re trying to reclaim the town of Aspen from this insane gang.

GamesBeat: I think it’s funny that even in the apocalypse, the One Percent have their playground.

Kopman: You’ll see that that is one of the themes that’s played on in the game, that sense of even in this crazy post-apocalyptic landscape, there is an inherent class structure that forms.

GamesBeat: Is that something, going into the game, when you started with the base narrative and advancing it — did you start out with that? Even in a world where everyone is scraping for what they can find, there are those who will always have more, and who will have access to other things? Or did that just develop out of the story you were telling?

Kopman: I don’t know exactly which direction that took, but I do know it’s baked into the game, this question of the benefits of the order that a structure can bring, versus the inhibited freedoms that that requires, in order to maintain the order. That wasn’t the best articulation. [Laughs] One of the big themes we’re playing with is, what’s the tradeoff between civilization and freedom? Control versus agency, that kind of thing.

Rocky Mountain high
GamesBeat: Going back to the original premise here, why did you decide to base this in Colorado?

Kopman: The big appeal there was to take Wasteland — [which] is very much Arizona; it’s in the desert — and just to turn that on its head and look at what it takes to survive in a civilization-less world in a very different kind. It’s still a wasteland, but it’s an icy wasteland. There’s that sense of, what are the compromises people have to make? What are the technologies they’d cobble together to survive in the cold? It’s very fruitful, I think.

GamesBeat: Is it colder because of what’s happened after the apocalypse?

Kopman: In the fiction of the game, the nuclear fallout of postwar somehow created this permanent Jupiter red spot style ice and cold storm in Colorado. The meteorology of that may not be 100 percent based on reality, but it created this fruitful element, again.

GamesBeat: Does anyone on the team come from Colorado or have an attachment to Colorado?

Kopman: I know our lead artist is either from Colorado or has lived there. That’s influenced some of the visual style. I don’t actually know if that’s part of the reason it was selected.

GamesBeat: There are plenty of areas in North America that are icy cold, after all. You could go to Alaska, but that takes a long time to get there. Canada, the same. When I think of Colorado, I think of the cold mountains, but I also think of these wonderful low areas, meadows and streams and forests.

Kopman: The world map you saw was just a tiny chunk that we carved out for this demo. But the world map itself covers everything from the high Rockies into the eastern plains. When you start the game you’re kind of in the middle in Colorado Springs. It gets colder and icier and stormier as you go up into the mountains, and it gets a bit warmer and a bit weirder as you go out onto the eastern plains. You have more radiation at play. That becomes a bigger obstacle you have to overcome. The eastern plains are the unruled country. That’s where the gangs are collecting. That’s where there are cults that have sprung up. Not exclusively, but that’s a very dangerous area, but it’s the only spot in the world of Wasteland 3 where you’ll see any grass. It’s still cold. It’s not totally summery. But it’s warmer out there. Part of the reason to use Colorado is that variety of environments in a relatively small — not small, but in a specific location. You can get that very obvious change.

GamesBeat: What’s the main takeaway you hope players get from Wasteland 3?

Kopman: I think the big thing is that we understand what people liked about Wasteland 2, and we’ve really honed in on those pillars. We have kept the DNA of the game very much the same. You’re not going to look at Wasteland 3 and feel like we upended everything and came up with a totally new kind of game. We took Wasteland 2 and what people liked about it and built on top of that. We have the choice and consequence. We have the narrative reactivity that’s the hallmark of the Wasteland franchise. Then on top of that we have the big visual upgrade. We have the full V/O. We have co-op multiplayer. The vehicle adding another element to the tactical combat. All that stuff is just in service of making something that still feels like Wasteland and is going to pay off Wasteland fans, but is just that next step up.

https://wccftech.com/wasteland-3-gamescom-preview/

Wasteland 3 Preview – Rocky Mountain Way



There’s no doubt that InXile Entertainment has done well for themselves, particularly thanks to the positive reception of Wasteland 2, which turned out to be one of the few crowdfunded games that managed to meet expectations (despite a slight delay) and proved to be the game that people wanted. It engendered a lot of support in the developers and, as a result, when they went back to crowdfunding for Wasteland 3, they surpassed their high goal of $2.75 million.

The question now is will Wasteland 3 be able to meet the expectations of fans? Having spent a bit of time, hands-on, with the game at Gamescom I’m certainly thinking that this will be the case. As described by the developers at the time, Wasteland 3 has taken the core of the second title, improved it in a number of ways and created a much more varied and engaging world.



From my time, is this the case? Well, there’s only so much I can say because I only saw a little section of what is the world map, plus one mission, set around the frigid wastes of Aspen. This is actually the same slice of Alpha gameplay that those who backed the development of the game can play. It’s a very combat-oriented slice of gameplay too, so those wondering about the story aren’t going to find a massive amount here. I was told some aspects when it comes to the story and how that works though.

So what was said is that the game will be 50+ hours long which, as always with titles like this, varies based on the amount a player likes to explore, do side quests and such as that. Wasteland 3 will contain full voiceover acting within the game, including hours of radio content. Indeed, some of this radio content will also be broadcasts that you have the ability to respond to, opening up different missions within the game. The key point is that it’s said you’ll have a strong amount of choice within the game. This is something I did see a bit of – more on that later.

What should be talked about is the atmosphere of the game. So, Wasteland 2 very much in the brown, green and grey range of colours – it makes sense, it was set in Arizona and California. However, this didn’t offer the most variety, nor did it really allow the game to explore the difficulties that one would find in a post-apocalyptic landscape. The move to Colorado looks to change this, especially with the inclusion of snow. Heavy snow.

Frankly, what little I saw of the new world looks great. It’s no longer a map that you just select somewhere and watch your characters go, now it’s a series of trails where you drive your armoured truck (Kodiak) along the snowy trails of Colorado. The huge increase in production value (the acquisition by Microsoft is said to have been a windfall to InXile) really shows, with everything looking, sounding and feeling great, particularly due to the use of full voiceovers and not limiting characters to static images with text.

Spoiler

Once you reach your destination, the Kodiak actually joins you in battle (or appears in a hub/settlement) too. Let me tell you, it’s an invaluable resource early on in any fight. It’s while fighting that you’ll notice even more of the increase in production values. Character models, terrain, buildings, everything features more detail in Wasteland 3 than in the second title. More than just production values, there’s also been an increase in how user-friendly combat is.

Inventory is one of the major ways that InXile have improved the use of characters and combat. No longer do characters have separate inventories, so you don’t have to faff around passing weapons and equipment from character to character, just to use them. The use of a shared inventory makes ammo and other resource management so much easier and is a much-appreciated change.

In a push to streamline and improve the user-friendliness of other aspects, you no longer need to flick from character to character just to perform an action. Come to a trap and click on it? The character with the ability to disarm it will step forward automatically. The only times it seems that you need to actually select a specific character is for the use of a particular skill, such as charming an animal. Personally, I had a fox follow my party into battle.

It didn’t exactly do much, it was cute though. As for fighting itself, it takes a much more traditional tactical approach, with you and your enemies taking it in turns, Wasteland 3 opting to drop the system that would see each character acting independently based on their own stats. Personally, I prefer this approach, it does make combat fairer and less easy to manipulate.



Coming back to the freedom of choice. Even in combat, you would see this, with multiple paths to choose from, each with their own challenges and rewards. You can, of course, backtrack too. The path I took, once I spotted a crane that could allow me to raise a large crate, led me into an underground area with a large stash of loot and high-end equipment. The gear was placed there just for the demo, but it goes to show how different routes can lead you to little bonuses here and there.

At the very end of this demo, there was also an example of the choice you can have in a combat situation as well as in the story. First, rather than face off against the bodyguards of Vic Buchanan – the person you’ve been sent to track down – you can show that you are one of them. How? Well, they’re called breathers and the only way to do that is by breathing in some of the drugs they take. Why the hell not, right? It saved me having to kill them all and risk losing some of my rangers.

That’s when you get to Vic and another choice can be made. Vic is a brutal, horrible person. He’s also a proficient fighter and has some resources at his disposal due to familial contacts. Rather than wanting to fight, Vic offers to join your party. Do you take him? Do you fight him? The choice is yours, I personally opted to bring him along and have him join the party.

That’s when the developer said, with a little surprise, that I was one of the first to choose that and that if, when the game is released, I opt for that option again, I would very likely alienate a number of people in the area. I’ve quite literally had a crazed psychotic join my team, one who has done horrible things. That’s bound to influence people’s perception of me and how much they’re willing to associate with me and trust me. I can’t blame them really.



Scheduled to release around spring 2020, Wasteland 3 will be coming to the PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4. Furthermore, when I asked, I was told that there will be the possibility of a Nintendo Switch port. Knowing the quality of Wasteland 3 and having seen this, I genuinely get the feeling that InXile is more than heading in the right direction. This should be yet another successful Kickstarter title, one that achieves the goals it sets.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Hmm, someone please give me a quick summary, did Inxile run out of money because they used one kickstarter to fund another project? I haven't followed news on the company for a while now.

We don't have any hard facts about inXile's financial state before the Microsoft buyout, but having two games in a row (Torment and Bard's Tale IV) flop horribly can't have been good for them.

Honestly, what did they expect?
Despite being heralded as one of the best RPGs it's well known that PST didn't sell well. The odds of their game even being half as good were low, it was a shit idea to begin with.

 

[Neerasrc]

Kopman: The world map you saw was just a tiny chunk that we carved out for this demo. But the world map itself covers everything from the high Rockies into the eastern plains. When you start the game you’re kind of in the middle in Colorado Springs. It gets colder and icier and stormier as you go up into the mountains, and it gets a bit warmer and a bit weirder as you go out onto the eastern plains. You have more radiation at play. That becomes a bigger obstacle you have to overcome. The eastern plains are the unruled country. That’s where the gangs are collecting. That’s where there are cults that have sprung up. Not exclusively, but that’s a very dangerous area, but it’s the only spot in the world of Wasteland 3 where you’ll see any grass. It’s still cold. It’s not totally summery. But it’s warmer out there. Part of the reason to use Colorado is that variety of environments in a relatively small — not small, but in a specific location. You can get that very obvious change.

Infinitron. Thanks for the news.

This is beautiful. I wonder how the transition from point A to point B will be. Like Wasteland 2? Or will we see it in real time? I'd prefer it to be like Dos2. The Pathfinder kingmaker or wasteland 2 was inadequate in my opinion about it.

 

[Bohr]

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

Again, this is the definitive version of that song, but they probably didn’t want to pay Wilco’s rates for an ad.

https://youtu.be/LIfxLgB9cW8

 

[Trans-Financial-Man]

My biggest issue with Wasteland 2 was that the game felt very bland and crunchy compared to the concept art for the game. This looks way more fun. But these are the same idiots who gave us ToN and Bards Tale 4. So we'll see if it's any good.

 

[Ivan]

Wasteland 2, particularly the LA section was great. Fingers crossed for this.