Wasteland may not be a series that is all that familiar to the general video gaming audience of today. But without it, gaming – particularly games with post-apocalyptic settings and RPGs in general – would be far different.
Its biggest contribution is, without a doubt, being Fallout’s precursor. Though it is usually overshadowed by it, they are different enough games to both warrant playing through – especially if you are a CRPG fan. They share many similarities: obviously, they both take place after a nuclear apocalypse, they feature a complex character system with an involved, tactical turn-based combat, an abundance of skills and weapons, and, most importantly, a focus on role-playing options and quests and characters that react and change according to your decisions.
But this is where the comparisons end – Wasteland is a combat-centric, team-based game and Fallout is about a single character (who can still choose to recruit one or more companions), that can complete the entire game without killing anyone (or anything).
The overall atmosphere is different as well, with FO being more somber and lore-heavy, and WL a goofier and more pop culture-oriented experience.
Wasteland 3, the next installment in the WL saga, is scheduled for release next year. So this is the perfect time to look back at the entire series and see what it did right, what it did wrong, and what we can expect – and hope – from Wasteland 3.
Wasteland 1 – the Beginning, and Almost the End
Released way back in 1988, Wasteland 1 was a landmark title that helped popularize many seminal features and elements that modern gamers have since come to expect in their games. Done in a similar graphical style to The Bard’s Tale, Interplay’s big dungeon-crawling series, WL1 was, while still thoroughly combat-oriented, more about problem-solving than dungeon (or abandoned military base) delving.
Featuring a classless system – another departure from the CRPG tropes of the time – the player starts with creating a party of four characters, with the option of enlisting up to three more during the course of the game. Unlike most of the games of that era, WL1 provided its players with several ways they could typically solve most obstacles. For example, if the party encountered a locked gate, they could attempt to pick the lock, force it open, climb over it, or blow it away with some explosives.
But the most significant change was the addition of the persistent world state. Instead of the game essentially resetting every time you turn it off, changes to the gameworld – such as which area was cleared of a certain type of enemy that you defeated – were kept during the course of the entire playthrough. The wacky atmosphere was further highlighted with unusual and memorable text descriptions – particularly those involving combat encounters. Instead of outright stating that a character was killed, the game would use off the wall euphemisms such as “X explodes like a blood sausage.”
But, one area where it definitely was similar to its contemporaries was the poorly-explained and frequently opaque ruleset (dozens of skills, only some of which are really needed to win the game – but good luck figuring out which those are on your first try), and the punishing, frustrating difficulty.
Wasteland 1 was met with glowing reviews from gaming critics, enthusiasm from players, and sold quite well. Unfortunately, its publisher, Electronic Arts, was wary from commencing the development on a sequel, and the IP languished in hibernation for more than two decades. Unable to secure the IP from EA, Interplay instead decided to create a new setting – one which they would control and hold the publishing rights to – and thus Fallout was born.
Brian Fargo, the director of the original WL, managed to buy back the Wasteland IP in 2007, and since then had been looking into ways to revive the series in his new game studio, inXile Entertainment. The 2012 Kickstarter crowdfunding boom gave him the perfect opportunity to do so.
Wasteland 2 – the Good, the Bad, and the Clunky
The very end of the 00s and the beginning of the 10s saw a drought of quality, party-based (Western) CRPGs the likes of Wasteland. A notable exception to this was Dragon Age, but on the whole, role-playing games seemed to be moving away from isometric, slow-paced experiences – to third or first-person games like Dark Souls, which focused more on action and environmental storytelling.
For some reason or another, certain genres such as adventure games and isometric CRPGs were deemed not to be popular (or, more likely, commercially viable) any more, and large publishers didn’t want to risk investing in their development.
This “dry spell” lasted for several years at which point two important things happened – videogame crowdfunding through sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo (and more recently – Fig) became a viable alternative to dealing with big publishers, and quality affordable game-making tools allowed indie developers to craft their own good-looking games.
Wasteland 2 rode on the first – and by far the biggest – wave of nostalgia Kickstarters. Mere weeks after Tim Schafer’s Double Fine Adventure Kickstarter that (kick)started the entire thing, inXile unveiled their own Wasteland 2 KS campaign. It followed the usual format that most crowdfunding campaigns adopted in those early days – grandiose (and vague) ideas, punctuated by big promises and prominent game designers. The reason why the majority of Kickstarters have failed to completely meet fan and backer expectations is because Kickstarters back then were about selling an idea, a dream concept of a game, instead of the game itself. And dreams always seem better than reality.
The campaign was a resounding success and ended with over $3 million raised. Work quickly started and, apart from the game’s release date being delayed from October 2013 to September 2014 (missing the release deadline was a common problem for all Kickstarter projects of that period), progressed without major hurdles.
The reaction upon release was decidedly mixed. The general consensus was that it was a solid throwback to the original, but that it was a strange, uneven game – too enamored with its own old-school sensibilities which only served as a detriment to the gameplay. As an example, you don’t have to look further than the attribute system.
There are several attributes that govern how many action points you will have (which is one of the most important stats in the entire game, since it allows you to take more actions – such as moving and shooting – during that character’s turn).
These are: Coordination, Strength, Speed, and Intelligence (with Luck giving you a chance of randomly getting lucky bonus AP). This is further complicated by the existence of combat speed and combat initiative, resulting in a system that is both inelegant and over-designed. In Fallout, this is governed by a single attribute – Agility.
Just like in the original Wasteland, there was also the issue of not knowing what weapons and skills will be useful in the beginning, middle, and end of the game. But, to be fair, this issue with balancing is also present in many other games, just not in the same extent as it is here.
A Director’s Cut of the game was released in 2015, and with it, Wasteland 2 was ported onto the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. The Nintendo Switch version followed in 2018. Because of the lukewarm reception and disappointing sales figures of WL2 and inXile’s other spiritual sequel – Torment: Tides of Numenera – most players assumed that that was it for Wasteland.
But then Brian Fargo once again surprised everyone with another crowdfunding campaign – this time on Fig.
Wasteland 3 – Fig Campaign, Development, Release Date
After both Wasteland 2 and Torment: Tides of Numenera failed to meet sales expectations, inXile was in a dire situation. But Fargo, ever the undaunted entrepreneur, managed to turn things around yet again. Enter – Fig.
Unlike other crowdfunding platforms, Fig operates on a different business model – it allows backers (if they opt to do so and pay a large enough sum) to directly invest into the game itself, potentially seeing a sizable return on their investment if the game sells well enough. The campaign was successful with $3.1 million raised – roughly $2.25 of which was from investors.
Most of the people who worked on WL2 returned to work on WL3. Brian Fargo is, of course, heavily involved, Mark Morgan (Fallout 1 & 2, Planescape: Torment, Wasteland 2, Torment: Tides of Numenera, etc.) will compose the soundtrack, and George Ziets, best known for his work on the Neverwinter Nights 2 expansion pack, Mask of The Betrayer (which is, incidentally, one of our picks for the best PC games of all time) is Design Lead.
Wasteland 3 was originally slated to be released Q4 2019 on the PC (on Steam, GOG, and the Epic Games Store), macOS, Linux, PlayStation 4, and the Xbox One, but has since been delayed and the new official release date is, at the time of writing – May 19, 2020.
Wasteland 3 – Trailer
Several trailers for Wasteland 3 have been released over the years, with the one from X019 being the most recent one.
The first thing that any fan of WL2 will immediately notice is the drastic change of climate. If WL1 and WL2 explored the scorched Earth variation of post-apocalyptic setting, then Wasteland 3 is about navigating a nuclear winter. If Wasteland 2 was, in many ways, a retread of WL1, with your team operating in much of the same areas as they did in the original (such as Arizona and California), inXile wisely decided to set WL3 in a never before seen area – Colorado, which would explain the extreme weather.
This time, it appears that the main conflict will be centered around stopping the Patriarch of Colorado and his three children. It seems like him and his family have turned the once-prosperous area into their personal playground, viciously dispatching anyone that displeases them.
The entire trailer is accompanied by a rendition of “Land of Confusion” by British rock band Genesis. This is a very appropriate song choice considering the music video features Ronald Reagan – whose statue is prominently displayed in the trailer and which appears to be important to the game’s plot. Like the narrator says, they yearn for a return to the values that the United States espoused before the bombs fell – in 1987, when Reagan was president.
Wasteland 3 – Gameplay Changes
Wasteland 3 promises a lot of changes to the classic Wasteland formula. The biggest one is that you will be able to play with a friend in co-op gameplay. Both of you will lead your own independent team of rangers, with the option to play while the other person is offline and complete your own sets of quests, and later meet up at key story moments.
You will also be able to drive different vehicles. Depending on how you customize them, these can be used for transportation, storage, as cover in combat, or even as another source of firepower if you mount a turret on top.
In WL1 and WL2, the Ranger Base was a location that you would periodically return to in order to rest, trade, and pick up new quests. In WL3, it is going to be a much more integral part of the story, where you will be able to make it into a true base of operations for the entirety of the game.
Dialogue has also been reworked. Now it is similar to the “talking heads” style that Fallout 1 and 2 had, where major NPCs switched over to animated close-ups. This meant that they would change their facial expressions to indicate their mood – everything from amusement, fear, joy, boredom, to outright homicidal hatred of your character.
And, of course, the significant graphical facelift that the game has received. It now looks better than ever, and will no doubt require a good gaming graphics card to run it on maxed out options.
Final Words
Everything we’ve seen so far indicates that Wasteland 3 will be a much tighter and improved experience that its predecessors. InXile has listened to player feedback and the biggest failings of WL2 – namely, the overcomplicated system – appears to have been altered for the better.
We look forward to seeing how inXile’s acquisition by Microsoft has impacted their ability to make games, and if Wasteland 3 truly is the post-apocalyptic CRPG masterpiece we’ve all been waiting for. May 19, 2020 can’t come soon enough.