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

[Abu Antar]

Got my Beta key. Not sure I'm goibg to touch it.

 

[Haplo]

Wonder if they've cut the number of redundant skills...

And grouped the weapons with more sense...

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.fig.co/campaigns/wasteland-3/updates/1192

Wasteland 3 Backer Beta Now Live

The Wasteland Backer Beta is now live on Steam! To those of you who backed the game at the Early Bird ($25) or higher tier, you'll have received an invite to claim your Beta key from CrowdOx (be sure to check your spam!). For more information on the Beta, how to play, and how to give us feedback, we highly recommend checking out our last Backer Beta Fig Update.

The Beta offers a look at the first few hours of the Wasteland 3 experience, from the game's opening cinematic, through creating your characters and establishing a base, to your first steps into the deep and reactive narrative of a post-apocalyptic Colorado.

If you're not in the Beta we highly recommend checking out press coverage from around the web, as well as livestreams on Mixer and Twitch. In fact, we're going to be joining Mixer on the official Xbox channel at 1pm PDT later today, March 17! Join our devs as they join a casual stream and answer your questions.

Thank you to all the backers to which this quite literally would not have been possible. Thank you for your patronage and passion, and we look forward to finishing the game and getting it in your hands.

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.pcgamer.com/au/wasteland-3-hands-on-a-familiar-new-post-apocalypse/

Wasteland 3 hands-on: A familiar new post-apocalypse
Wasteland finally looks ready to step out of Fallout’s shadow.

Colorado, after the end of the world, is a different sort of place than Arizona. It's cold, dark, snowy, and its people—some of them, anyway—enjoy life in a relatively well-ordered, functional society. But in many ways it's similar to the desert wasteland: The world is still a mess, and what remains of civilization is about two bad days away from collapsing into anarchy or worse.

Wasteland 3 is a lot like that, too. It’s different from Wasteland 2 in some notable and positive ways, but once you start wading through the mangled bodies and assholes with guns, it starts to feel very familiar, in a good way.

InXile's end-of-the-world hellscape a brutal, messy place that will trip you up at every opportunity. Very early in the demo, I allowed a criminal to escape in exchange for releasing her hostage safely—score one for the good guys! Except the criminal ran away to warn the rest of her gang, who executed the other hostages they were holding so they could lay an ambush for me. Whoops. Later on, I released a starving man from a cage, which seemed like the humane thing to do, buuuut I'm pretty sure that's going to come back to bite me in the ass too.

The moral quandaries are fun but the awfulness of Wasteland 3's world gets heavy-handed at times, and I do worry that in the drive to differentiate itself from Bethesda's sanitized Fallout games, Wasteland 3 might go a little too far in the other direction. The opening sequence depicts a catastrophic ambush of a Ranger convoy (which is how you end up alone, so far from home), and the graphic descriptions of the Ranger bodies you'll stumble on suggest that your attackers spent time torturing and killing them in the worst ways possible.

I found it immersion-breaking—not the descriptions themselves, but the idea that someone would have the time and inclination to slice open a Ranger's belly and yoink his guts out while he's still alive, ooh the horror! I get that we're establishing right from the start that the bad guys are vicious and cruel and crazy, but the bullets and rockets flying around clearly indicate that this all happened in the heat of the moment, while the fight is still ongoing. It's a distracting mix of narrative elements—the show clashing with the tell—and I hope that it's smoothed out for the full release.

The demo doesn't dig deep into the story of Wasteland 3, but it does introduce the obligatory Ranger base, a sprawling, dilapidated, but still largely functional military facility. More interesting is the man who owns it: The Patriarch, who invited the Rangers to Colorado to help him deal with threats to the city-state he runs. He's a charismatic leader, and his long-time followers are fully and completely committed to him.

There’s no denying that he's achieved results, but at a very steep cost. The law is enforced harshly, and those on the fringes of society are effectively trapped there, subject to abuses of authority and worse. (Sound familiar?)

This is where I hope Wasteland 3 really shines. The combat is bloody and satisfying, but I want to stick my face into the moral meatgrinder of a (maybe) good man doing (maybe) horrific things to (maybe) rebuild civil society in a world overrun by mutants, violent gangs, and (definitely) worse—and who might actually be succeeding in the effort.

The game world is ugly and broken, but the game itself is much prettier than its predecessor. Wasteland 2 had a distinctly '90s Fallout look to it, with visually worn metal and buttons built around an image of a weapon across the bottom of the screen. Wasteland 3 cleans up that rugged, retro look by moving the weapon indicator to the right and eliminating the quick-access inventory buttons entirely. Other elements of the UI, like the "printout" describing actions and events, are gone too.

It's less cluttered and represents a distinct break from Wasteland 2's Fallout-inspired design (which was ironic, since Fallout was inspired by the original Wasteland. Videogames, like time, are a flat circle). The smaller, less intrusive control scheme provides pop-ups as necessary to accomplish the same tasks as the older, busier interface.

While Wasteland 3's visual style has mostly moved beyond the early Fallout games, it loops back around on itself in one amusing way. Attributes, skills, and perks in the game are accompanied by cartoon-like images of two robots, a fat man and a little boy, who throw off a very Vault Boy-like vibe. I get the feeling we’re going to be seeing more of these two as it approaches release.

The inventory system has also undergone a big change. Each character in Wasteland 2 had their own individual inventory, but in Wasteland 3 everything is drawn from a shared pool, so there's no need to worry about who's packing what or swapping things around to ensure that everyone has the best possible loadout. Filtering options help with the clutter, and it dramatically simplifies the job of kitting out your team: Each character can see everything that's in the party's inventory, and draw from it accordingly.

You’ll have plenty of opportunities for chit-chat as you explore this new part of the country, but combat remains the core of the game, and Wasteland 2 veterans (or Fallout fans with good memories) will feel right at home. Each character has a number of action points based on their attributes, which can be spent on movement, shooting, reloading, or using items. Combat is turn-based. But initiative, which controls the order in which your party members take their turns in Wasteland 2, is out. In Wasteland 3, you can switch between your squaddies as you like. Move your gunner to your medic, have your medic heal her, and then move the gunner back into cover, for instance. The ability to move and execute freely is a significant change that really increases your team's flexibility in a fight.

There are a few other, more minor changes in the way fights play out. The automatic cover system remains but crouching, which improved evasion and accuracy in Wasteland 2, has been eliminated. Precision strikes have also been removed; in their place, weapons have special attacks that are charged up with regular use. They're a bit like ultimate powers in Overwatch. After a set number of standard attacks, rocket launchers can pop off a Nuke Strike, for example, and heavy machine guns can deal out a Torrent Strike. Players can also opt to dedicate action points to improved defense or ambushes, or carry a limited number over to the next turn, something that's not possible in Wasteland 2.

The perk system has also been given a nice upgrade. In Wasteland 2, perks carry specific requirements but they're listed alphabetically, which requires a lot of digging to find perks that work well together. In Wasteland 3 they're laid out along a kind of skill tree (although a small number of "General Perks" are open to everyone), so it's much easier to visualize how it all comes together.

My time with Wasteland 3 ended after I gunned down a gang of teenagers. I know that sounds bad, and okay, I suppose it is bad, but in my defense they were really asking for it. In the world of Wasteland, that kind of thing is okay—with certain caveats. Wasting the teeny-boppers made one of my party members happy, and it was probably a mercy in the long run. But a post-preview wrap-up told me that offing them angered two of Colorado's dominant power structures, which will make my immediate future a lot more complicated. I probably should've seen that coming.

The mechanical tuning and polish in Wasteland 3 should eliminate some of the frustrations of the previous game without entirely relieving players of responsibility (don't forget to put a grenade in your quick slot, or you won't be throwing any when the crunch comes), and while a part of me laments the loss of the old-time Fallout look, I have to admit that the upgraded graphics and effects make for a nice layer of visual flash that Wasteland 2 lacked. Coupled with the underlying basics of accessible turn-based combat and a genuinely gritty, messy post-apocalyptic setting, this could be one of the best RPGs of 2020. I will miss the desert, but I have very high hopes for the Rangers' new home.

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.pcgamesn.com/wasteland-3/preview

Wasteland 3 is everything I wanted from Borderlands 3 and Phoenix Point
Our hands on with Wasteland 3 takes us to the freezing wastes of Colorado, and leaves us wanting more

Right off the bat, turn-based RPG Wasteland 3 is gory. Thrust into a blood-drenched cinematic, a group of Rangers scramble to find cover as they fight off an ambush while trying to navigate across a frozen lake in Colorado. Immediately people are dying, people you think will escape and survive – it’s obvious that Wasteland 3 isn’t going to leave any room for mistakes.

After the bloody encounter, I choose my first two rangers; a young couple wielding a pistol and assault rifle. In the first battle I get a taste for what the new vehicles can do, launching a torrent of bullets into a thunderous mech that occupies most of the battle arena and toppling the titan The initial encounter shows me how to use my abilities and take cover – and when and how to pick a fight, and I leave the smouldering wreck to continue my journey to hunt down The Patriarch, the only person that can help the rangers in their time of need.

This outburst of violence all takes place in Colorado, Wasteland 3’s new setting. It’s the perfect landscape for the sci-fi elements developer inXile introduces and as I traverse the frozen ground, scarlet blood incongruously splattered against the ice, and possibility of peril around every corner.

“We wanted to take it to an environment that was very different from the previous one,” lead level designer Jeremy Kopman tells me. “Partially just for variety, but also to explore how people would survive in extreme environments without the trappings of modern civilisation.”

The introduction of such harsh elements has had a bearing on the narrative, certainly, but it also opens up new gameplay mechanics – freezing enemies with cold grenades and overcoming the cold climate, for example. Survival is a key theme in Wasteland games and Wasteland 3 really drives into what Kopman calls, “order versus chaos,” and the fine line between objectively evil or good characters. Kopman describes The Patriarch as, “somewhere in the middle, and you get to explore his very specific perspective. There’s other characters you’re going to meet, and they’re going to say he’s terrible, he’s brutal, there’s no mercy. But he’s also kept hundreds of thousands of people safe and fed and warm in this horrible landscape.”

The lines don’t seem that blurred when we meet new enemy clan, The Dorseys. The group of fanatical, cannibalistic survivors are interested in the deluge of blood. One of them jumps up and down, decorated in the innards from a dead ranger and throws the guts up in the air in some celebratory ritual. I’m struck by the memories I’d had playing Borderlands 3 last year and how similar The Dorseys are to that of Psychos. They make for good fighting fodder, sure, but they’re not especially imbued with any sense of depth. It’s tiresome to think that the apocalypse would only be full of people so inherently evil that they bathe in the guts of fallen humans for fun.

Spoiler

But the difference between the two becomes obvious when the humour lands, something the irritating enemies and overall tone of Borderlands 3 rarely stirred in me. I laughed out loud on several occassions during my Wasteland 3 playthrough, the occasion due to a notice warning me that the awaiting mech will ‘fuck me up’, and the second when I ask one of The Dorsey leaders, a bombastic, blood-junkie, why he was doing all this. He replies “because it was ‘ordained’” – I shoot him in the head and the remains fly against the screen. Sometimes the violence seems irrelevant, sometimes superfluous, sometimes shocking, but sometimes – funny?

There are plenty of dialogue options that change the narrative path and outcome – some are locked behind skills you’ll need to purchase for your character and include combat, social, and engineering boosts. Characters can be formed this way, and while they start as something of a blank slate, dialogue and action choices create new paths and narrative threads. The character interface is clear but extensive, and by being able to interact with my rangers this way, it gives them the personality and has the intimacy I craved from my Phoenix Point soldiers.

Kopman and I discuss all the potential outcomes of each scenario and how much individual actions affect the narrative. Wasteland 3 will have at least ten endings, divergence I catch a glimpse of after replaying a scenario making different choices that lead to alternate combat events. In the first instance, I shoot at my ally’s hostage taker, who in turn kills my friend, but I’m able to sneak up on the next group of enemies and detonate some oil barrels, killing almost all of them. However, on my second playthrough I defuse the hostage situation and the enemy flees, warning the rest of her group that we are on our way. When we arrive they are expecting us and in defensive positions, spread around walls and across the battlefield. And it’s not just the encounter that changes, the friend I saved can be later recruited as a companion.

I also came across a finely dressed cat perched on top of a wall dressed in a trilby hat and bandana called Major Tomcat. If you purchase the animal whisperer skill then he’ll gladly join your crew, too. He’s also quite the smoker, so if that ally you saved earlier in the game tosses you a pack of cigarettes to wave at Major Tomcat, he’ll be persuaded to follow you into battle.

“Some companions are non combat, but they give you some sort of status effect bonus,” Kopman says. “So things like small animals – cats and rabbits, they’re not going to fight yet, but they will give you a little bonus while they’re following you. There are other animals that you can find later in the game that will fight with you. There’s one that we showed off in our alpha which was a bear cub that you can tame and then it follows you around and then it will go on mauling people for you.”

From what I’ve played so far of Wasteland 3, the level of depth, characters, atmosphere, and scale of the game only leaves me wanting more.

https://www.pcgamesn.com/wasteland-3/endings

Wasteland 3 will have at least ten major endings

Wasteland 3 is the upcoming turn-based RPG from inXile Entertainment and the next game in the Wasteland series. While previous games in the series have featured multiple endings, it wasn’t known precisely how many this threequel would boast. Now, in an interview with PCGamesN, lead level designer Jeremy Kopman confirms there will be as many as ten endings, thanks to Wasteland 3’s narrative potential and the impact smaller choices have on the story.

“We’ve done the back of the envelope maths, and we have at least ten major ending points,” Kopman says. It’s not surprising, considering the number of dialogue options and how those choices can have a ripple effect throughout the game. In our hands-on preview, we were able to put those decisions into practice, playing out two alternatives, which led to two entirely different combat outcomes.

“And then there’s tonnes of smaller choices that impact little permutations of the ending that ripple out through various characters,” Kopman continues. “We also are tracking what different factions think of you, so how much The Patriarch’s security force The Marshals like you affects choices that you can make much later in the game.”

From what we’ve played so far the dialogue and narrative options are very extensive, which Kopman says is the hope behind Wasteland 3, to “remind people why they loved the post-apocalyptic RPG, that huge swath of choice and consequence”.

Bethesda’s Fallout series was an inspiration, he says: “Fallout is known for those choices where you can choose to do something very early in the game, and then it has a ripple effect that comes back 25 hours later.” He adds: “We’re drawing from the Fallout games, that’s our parentage.”

Set in Colorado, Wasteland 3 follows the decimated Rangers as they search the frozen rocky mountains for a character named The Patriarch, who offers the promise of supplies in exchange for the Rangers’ help with a family feud. The game is due to launch for PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One on May 19, 2020.

https://www.pcgamesn.com/wasteland-3/how-long-is

How long is Wasteland 3?
How long can you spend exploring the frozen mountains and icy plains in Wasteland 3?

How long is Wasteland 3? Thinking of picking up the next post-apocalyptic RPG in the Wasteland series? It may intrigue you to know how long you can spend exploring the unforgiving frozen wastes of Colorado, the chosen setting for Wasteland 3.

From what we’ve played so far, Wasteland 3 is shaping up to be an atmospheric and gory turn-based RPG following in the path of the popular Wasteland 2. Instead of the barren Arizona landscape, Colorado’s harsh and treacherous environment offers new survival elements and gameplay features, as well as brand new blood lovin’ enemies, our hands-on Wasteland 3 preview delves into the first three hours of gameplay.

There’s a lot to do in Wasteland 3 outside of just taking down enemies and sifting through various dialogue options to progress through the main story. There’s plenty of side missions, alternative routes, and narrative threads to explore. Here’s how long it will take you to complete Wasteland 3 if you just want to get through the main story, or if you’re a super completionist.

HOW LONG IS WASTELAND 3?
Wasteland 3 will take 20 to 30 hours for the main story, but around 50 hours if you want to complete side missions and explore the world.

In a recent interview with lead level designer Jeremy Kopman from InXile, we chatted about the Wasteland 3 endings, narrative choices, and how long Wasteland 3 will take to beat. With a ton of optional content that runs alongside the main story, it really depends how invested you are in either just sticking to the main missions, or completing the whole game. Kopman says, “At least 30 hours, 20 to 30 hours just to do the absolute minimum, but if you’re exploring everything, it could be much more, 40 to 50 probably, and above that if you’re a super super completionist.”

That’s how long it’ll take you to complete Wasteland 3, the game releases May 19, 2020, so if you’ve got time before taking on this turn-based RPG, take a look at the best RPGs on PC.

 

[Daedalos]

Can't even boot up the game, anybody else getting black screen?

 

[Infinitron]

More previews:

https://www.windowscentral.com/wasteland-3-helping-me-forget-all-about-fallout
https://www.pcinvasion.com/wasteland-3-first-impressions-and-interview-with-brian-fargo/
https://www.gamesradar.com/uk/waste...proven-formula-to-a-chilling-post-apocalypse/
https://screenrant.com/wasteland-3-previews/
https://wccftech.com/wasteland-3-preview-wasteland-wonderland/
https://www.vg247.com/2020/03/17/wasteland-3-hands-on-preview/
https://www.dualshockers.com/wasteland-3-preview-pc/
https://www.cgmagonline.com/2020/03/17/wasteland-3-is-inexiles-boldest-game-yet/
https://www.shacknews.com/article/116952/wasteland-3-hands-on-preview-tundra-trouble-and-turns
https://attackofthefanboy.com/artic...lay-back-in-the-post-apocalypse-beta-preview/
https://www.rpgsite.net/preview/9530-wasteland-3-preview
https://www.destructoid.com/wastela...-has-plenty-of-jank-to-go-around-583594.phtml
https://twinfinite.net/2020/03/wasteland-3-hands-on-preview/
https://gamingtrend.com/feature/previews/the-colorado-rangers-wasteland-3-preview/
https://techraptor.net/gaming/previews/wasteland-3-first-impressions
https://www.gameskinny.com/bponb/wasteland-3-preview-impressions-bring-on-the-cold-baby
https://www.gamespew.com/2020/03/wasteland-3-preview/
https://www.psu.com/news/wasteland-...lorado-setting-combat-non-linear-choice-more/
https://cogconnected.com/preview/wasteland-3-preview-2/

 

[rusty_shackleford]

tl;dr
is it good?

 

[Daedalos]

Wait. do I need Win10 to run this game? i ran the alpha fine

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Wait. do I need Win10 to run this game? i ran the alpha fine

no, you can use linux instead

 

[Infinitron]

Here's some YouTube:



Also, interview with Jeremy Kopman on Koch Media channel:

 

[Abu Antar]

Wait. do I need Win10 to run this game? i ran the alpha fine

Windows 10.

Will the beta key turn into the full game or are they separate keys?

 

[Infinitron]

Will the beta key turn into the full game or are they separate keys?

From the Fig comment section: The Beta key will not become the retail key (it'll be a separate key once the retail version is available).

With this in mind, I will be giving my beta key away here. IM me if interested once the 17th rolls around.

 

[Neerasrc]

Early prediction:
Cyberpunk 2077 is very weak mechanically. No hope in vampire. Result: 2020 Best rpg: wasteland 3 hahah Hey, fargo. You're okay again.

(How did that happen. I did not understand too.)

I took a look at the beta. I'm still behind this sentence.

 

[Abu Antar]

I don't have Windows 10. Still managed to play the beta. I'll see when I actually have time to play this. Probably next week as the school I work on is most likely closed down due to covid-19.
A few Skills, Perks, Attributes and Background screens.

Spoiler

Options screens.

Spoiler

 

[rusty_shackleford]

So what was the thing that was referenced in the tweet?

 

[Infinitron]

https://mixer.com/xbox

 

[Neerasrc]

Perks

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

Wait. do I need Win10 to run this game? i ran the alpha fine

Then there is a good chance that they had hardlocked the game to fail on Win 7, which ironically is similar thing that happened to Fallout in 1997. I hope someone manages to create a workaround for this.

 

[Abu Antar]

I'm on Win 7 and I ran the game on decent settings as you can see in the options screens that I shared. I think your hardware is more important in this case.

 

[Infinitron]

Oh good, this was on Twitch also:

 

[fantadomat]

I'm on Win 7 and I ran the game on decent settings as you can see in the options screens that I shared. I think your hardware is more important in this case.

So,do you like it? Is it juvenile shit like in the trailer?

 

[Abu Antar]

I'm on Win 7 and I ran the game on decent settings as you can see in the options screens that I shared. I think your hardware is more important in this case.

So,do you like it? Is it juvenile shit like in the trailer?

I will share thoughts later in the week. I just tried it out to see if I could run it. Impressions to come in a few days.

 

[randir14]

Performance really sucks. As soon as I got to Colorado Springs I couldn't get more than 53 fps. Also the difference between max and lowest settings is only ~5 fps. Other areas were 70+ fps but with constant stuttering when moving the camera.

 

[Urthor]

Performance really sucks. As soon as I got to Colorado Springs I couldn't get more than 53 fps. Also the difference between max and lowest settings is only ~5 fps. Other areas were 70+ fps but with constant stuttering when moving the camera.

Is the engine Unity? Because it sounds like good old Unity does it again and you're SOL

Also I'm lowkey hyped for the best game Brian Fargo has ever made to come out tbh, Wasteland 2 was pretty great by director's cut edition