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Wasteland 2 review: The toxic adventure
It looks like mankind finally did it. After decades of nuclear-armed nation states flaunting their atomic might, somebody took things a step too far, pressed the big red button and the entire world was reduced to cinders in an apocalyptic hail of ballistic missiles. After the dust settled and the gloom of the nuclear tundra set in, tiny pockets of survivors clamored up from the rubble and banded together like dirty, irradiated meerkats. Most were just in it for the chance to eke out some kind of existence under the new status quo, but those kind souls were constantly harried by bands of raiders, cannibals, mutants and jerks who somehow thought the apocalypse would be an appropriate time to shout, "Blaster Master rules Bartertown!" at every opportunity. All of this is a pretty big bummer for humanity, but for players of Wasteland 2, the end of the world as we know it is just the beginning of a role-playing game that, through a combination of clever writing, daunting attention to detail and phenomenal post-apocalyptic world building, legitimately earns the oft-hyperbolic descriptor of "epic." It's just too bad that these strengths are so often overshadowed by technical problems.
Go go desert rangers, Wasteland 2 out September 19
Pack your shotgun, sun cream, anti-radiation pills and don't forget the toothbrush, because after a quarter of a century, the sequel to Wasteland is nearly here. inXile boss Brian Fargo confirmed the post-apocalyptic RPG is nailed in to hit PC, Mac and Linux on September 19. Wasteland 2 was due to arrive this month, but inXile said it delayed the release so it could fulfill reward commitments to backers, who, after all, raised $3 million in funding. After more than 25 years what's another month, hm?
Joystiq Streams: Wandering Wasteland 2 with Brian Fargo [UPDATE: Relive the stream!]
We are hearty rangers! We do not fear cultists worshipping the atomic bomb, mutated freaks, or roving bands of slavering summer cannibals, baking in the ceaseless southwestern sun of America. We gather our party, our band of freaks and survivors, and we walk right out into the dry heat of apocalyptic Arizona with our heads held high and our guns slung low. Then we take slow turns blowing stuff up. That's how it's done in Wasteland 2. Starting at 4PM EST on Joystiq.com/Twitch, Joystiq will play a complete version of Wasteland 2, InXile Entertainment's 27-years-in-the-making game. Studio founder and Wasteland mastermind Brian Fargo will join us for a veteran ranger's view of the action. Swing by if you want to ask questions or get a look at the game weeks before it releases in full. Joystiq Streams broadcasts every Tuesday and Thursday at 4PM EST on Joystiq.com/Twitch, but we regularly get freaky on our channel so make sure to follow us on Twitch to know when we go live. [Images: InXile Entertainment]
Wasteland 2 slips to September, new beta released
InXile Entertainment revealed that its Kickstarter-funded open-world RPG Wasteland 2 is now "likely" due to launch in early September, pushing past a previously announced August release window. InXile attributes the delay to fulfillment and shipping of backer pledge rewards, including game discs and physical bonuses. Today's announcement accompanies the release of a new beta version that introduces a mini-map feature, new audio cues, and a major gameplay rebalancing across all areas and encounters, among other additions. Wasteland 2 backers have seen multiple beta releases following the game's Early Access launch late last year. Today's beta marks the team's "last code update before the game is finalized," according to project lead Chris Keenan. "This has been a labor of love from the entire team and I'm incredibly proud with what they have achieved," Keenan said. "So much of their personalities are found around each corner in the game. We hope you enjoy the attention to detail in the world we all have created." [Image: InXile Entertainment]
Torment: Tides of Numenera pushed back to Q4 2015
InXile will release Torment: Tides of Numenera a year later than originally planned, after the studio moved the RPG's release window from early 2015 to the fourth quarter of the year. The Planescape: Torment spiritual successor was first targeted for December 2014 before Inxile pushed it into 2015 towards the end of its Kickstarter campaign. That said, the news isn't a huge surprise. InXile is also working on fellow fundraised game Wasteland 2, which the studio recently revealed will launch in August. As Torment Project Lead Kevin Saunders noted in an extensive post, the second game's schedule was always in flux while until the Wasteland 2 plans were set in stone.
Meet the live-action Desert Rangers of Wasteland 2
It's not often that a developer opts for a live-action introductory cinematic these days, but this brand new clip from Wasteland 2 is appropriately gritty and sun-bleached. For those who haven't been enjoying the game's Early Access incarnation, know that the first moments of Wasteland 2 see your character attending a funeral - the same funeral depicted in the final moments of the above video, making this cinematic something of an explanatory, immediate prequel to the events of Wasteland 2. More crucially though, this footage introduces the Desert Rangers, a hardened group of ragtag soldiers who patrol the wastes protecting innocent people. Most of the time, anyway. Wasteland 2 offers immense freedom of choice, so if you'd rather murder and loot everyone you see, that's a perfectly viable (if sociopathic) decision. Now that you're roughly up to speed on the whys and hows of the fall of mankind, you only have a few months wait remaining before you can dig into the final, retail version of Wasteland 2. According to inXile, the game will make its official debut at some point in August. [Image: inXile Entertainment]
Wasteland 2 gains Linux support on Steam Early Access
The beta version of Wasteland 2 is now available on Linux via Steam's Early Access program, developer InXile Entertainment announced. The sequel to the 1988 Interplay-created RPG first launched in alpha form in December. The project found success on Kickstarter in April 2012, raising $2.9 million to fund the turn-based, isometric strategy game. InXile also recently added "roughly 400" changes to Wasteland 2's beta, including another large portion of Arizona in the game. The update notes mention reduced loading times, a redesigned vendor screen and added tutorials among all the bug fixes and balance corrections in the patch. The Early Access price for the game is $60, though it includes a copy of the first game, two digital novellas from the Wasteland universe, and a digital art book and sound track. [Image: InXile Entertainment]
Wasteland 2 beta update fleshes out Arizona
While "less than half" of Wasteland 2 is currently available in beta via Steam Early Access, an update coming next week will add another major area. After the update, Wasteland 2's beta will feature "most of the Arizona portion of the game." According to "beta testing metrics and feedback," InXile estimates Wasteland 2 will take about 50 hours to complete for a regular playthough. Developer InXile Entertainment is also teasing the location for the second portion of the game, which takes place in a post-apocalyptic Los Angeles (also known to residents simply as Los Angeles). The Los Angeles areas in Wasteland 2, teased above, will feature "the ruins of familiar landmarks overgrown with wild plant life, crawling with weird creatures, and dangerous mad cults." So, it's just like the real Los Angeles. Wasteland 2 is the official sequel to the 1988 classic isometric role-playing game from developer Interplay. Its Kickstarter campaign, which sought a total of $900,000 to bring the series back from the dead, eventually accrued over $2.9 million. [Images: InXile Entertainment]
Wasteland 2 devs unleash major beta update via Steam Early Access
InXile Entertainment has released a sizable update for the beta version of Wasteland 2, introducing more than 2,000 gameplay additions, features, and fixes along with a new in-game location. New features in the lastest update include destructible cover, additional class skills, and an overhauled combat system. InXile notes that the new "Prison" area, shown in the trailer above, adds enough content to fill the current beta with over 30 hours of gameplay in total. Wasteland 2 was funded via a successful Kickstarter project in 2012, and has since greatly expanded in scope. A full changelog for the latest beta update is available here. [Image: InXile Entertainment]
New Wasteland 2 beta build goes live on PC, Mac tomorrow
Wasteland 2 isn't ready to travel into the arid, post-apocalyptic desert just yet, but a new beta build set to release tomorrow will allow developer inXile Entertainment to progress ever-closer to a full release. The team has already addressed more than 1,000 bugs and suggestions (out of 2,300), and with the upcoming build, plan to introduce a new inventory, new locations, changes to existing locations, destructible objects, new combat animations and more ambient sounds. As for when to expect that full-fledged release? "When it's done." "We know better than to give an exact date at this point because in addition to pushing the game in the ways we'd planned, we're going to continue to incorporate player comments that make sense for us to address," the studio wrote in an update on their Kickstarter page. "But we are in the final stretch, and are thankful our backers have consistently agreed we should take the time we need." [Image: inXile Entertainment]
Wasteland 2 hits Steam Early Access with Butchers of Arizona trailer
Wasteland 2 is available on Steam Early Access for $60, a fee that grants players Wasteland 2, the original Wasteland, the Mark Morgan soundtrack, and Wasteland digital novellas and art book. InXile's Wasteland 2 was funded via Kickstarter in 2012, raising $2.9 million from 61,000 backers. Those who contributed $55 or more got access to the beta yesterday. InXile shows off some Wasteland 2 gameplay in the gritty "Butchers of Arizona" trailer. Relatedly, it's a temperate 70-ish degrees in Phoenix right now. You gotta take the good with the bad.
MMO Burnout: Wasteland 2's early beta
The grandfather of the dynamic RPG is releasing a sequel next year, and those of us old enough to remember the original are throwing out our hips with joy. Twenty five years is a long time to wait for a rightful heir to the throne, even though we've been treated kindly with spiritual successors along the way in the form of the Fallout franchise. Still, nothing compares to the original Wasteland and how it changed the RPG genre, and Wasteland 2 has already begun to redefine gaming with one of the largest crowdfunding drives to date. For those who pledged $55 or more to Wasteland 2 during its Kickstarter campaign, a shiny new early access beta key was waiting for them earlier this week. This Steam key allowed early-access players into this very early beta build to kick the tires a bit and see how this game works. Read on for my impressions of Wasteland 2 from the perspective of both an original Wasteland fan and a modern gamer.
Wasteland 2 beta open to backers; Steam Early Access arrives tomorrow
If you threw at least $55 at inXile Entertainment's heavily-anticipated, crowdfunded Wasteland 2, your generosity is paying off: As of this morning, you have access to a playable beta test of the post-apocalyptic roleplaying game. Entering the beta is easy. If you backed Wasteland 2 to the tune of $55 or greater, you should have received log-in credentials for the Wasteland 2 Ranger Center. Visit that site, enter your information, and suddenly you're the owner of a Steam key redeemable for the beta. Keep in mind, though, this is only a limited portion of the game, including "the first four major areas ... and related minor maps, along with character creation, world map travel, and random encounters." Developer inXile Entertainment claims that new areas will be added to the beta as time goes by, but in the meantime it has offered a handy guide to all there is to see in the game's current incarnation. Those who didn't fund Wasteland 2 aren't going to be left out in the dusty, irradiated cold, however. Today's announcement also brings word that the Wasteland 2 beta will hit Steam Early Access on December 13. Access to the Steam Early Access beta won't be free, though by paying for the chance to play Wasteland 2 before its public release, you're helping to fund the game's development. That said, there's currently no word on the price point attached to the Wasteland 2 Steam Early Access beta.
The most-funded Kickstarter game, Torment, is now turn-based
Torment: Tides of Numenera will feature turn-based combat, rather than real-time with pause combat, following an audience poll from developer inXile. The poll itself was statistically a tie, with 7,267 voters for turn-based, 7,052 for real-time and 782 indifferent people (but who really like voting in polls). "We have decided to go with turn-based combat," Project Lead Kevin Saunders wrote in a Kickstarter update. "Ultimately, there are no losers here. This is all part of the process of making an RPG we are all passionate about and we think you'll like Torment's combat even if you voted for RTwP. While we have not been looking forward to disappointing half of our backers, we were happy to find that many of the reasons people gave for disliking TB and preferring RTwP can be addressed through the details of our combat system and encounter design." Torment: Tides of Numenera raised $4.19 million to become the most-funded game to ever hit Kickstarter. Details about the newly-decided combat system can be found right here.
Classic post-apocalyptic RPG Wasteland out now on Steam, GOG
Responding to fan demand for a modern re-release of its acclaimed classic RPG Wasteland, InXile Entertainment is now offering up a repackaged version for purchase via Steam and Good Old Games. Released in 1988 for the Commodore 64, Apple II, and DOS, Wasteland puts players in control of a large and varied party of characters who wander the harsh deserts of the American Southwest in the aftermath of a nuclear war. Though subsequent attempts at a sequel met with limited success after its initial release, Wasteland later served as inspiration for Interplay's Fallout series. InXile is currently developing Wasteland 2, a Kickstarter-funded follow-up that was delayed past its intended October release due to its expanded scope and emphasis on player choice. Kickstarter campaign supporters received early access to the re-released Wasteland 1, which has been downloaded more than 33,000 times since its backer-exclusive release last Friday.
Torment: Tides of Numenera update details alignment system, backers to vote on combat soon
inXile will torment fans and supporters of Torment: Tides of Numenera no longer; thanks to a recent update on the game's Kickstarter page, all can now view the detailed explanations of the RPG's alignment system, and those who backed the game can voice their opinion on how they'd like to see combat handled. Numenera handles alignment via "tides." Tides are basically like invisible astrological signs: They are not something most inhabitants know about, nor are they something people strive for. Instead, they represent a person's legacy and the driving force behind their actions. The blue tide represents wisdom, the red tide represents passion, the indigo tide represents justice, the gold tide represents charity and sacrifice, and the silver tide represents power. The bleach Tide represents clean clothes. While tides were given a basic explanation on the game's main Kickstarter page, the update helps further explain their nature and role in the game. For example, "if your Dominant Tide(s) match those of an NPC, it can have varying effects," the update reads. "You might be able to understand their motivations and manipulate them better. They may like you more (or less) without knowing why. The difficulty of certain dialogue tasks may decrease (or increase). Most of this is done behind the scenes, but certain skills and abilities can reveal some of this information." Combat will play a big role in Torment: Tides of Numenera, and inXile has presented two options for how it will play out in the game: real-time with pausing or turn-based. Backers have been encouraged to voice their thoughts on both systems, with an official vote coming soon.
Wasteland 2 update lifts fog on how you'll explore, and die, in the wastes
Taking a hike through the world of Wasteland 2 will be fraught with danger and discovery. An update on the game's Kickstarter page has revealed how exploration will work in inXile Entertainment's upcoming post-nuclear apocalypse RPG, as well as the guiding principles behind its design. The basic map experience, according to Montgomery Markland, a producer on Wasteland 2, is one of exploration, discovery and survival. The game's map will be broken into a 3D version which renders your immediate surroundings, and a 2D version that shows the overall region, as well as the location of settlements, resources and "sites." Sites in Wasteland 2 are described by Markland as "minor locations such as an abandoned mine or a highway roadblock." No matter where you go, however, death awaits. Along with keeping an eye out for attacks from random monsters and other survivors, players will also need to watch their Geiger counter. The land is irradiated, and wandering into pockets of dense radiation can result in instant death. Even if you avoid radiation poisoning however, the world of Wasteland 2 can still kill you via dehydration. "Water management is challenging and important," Markland writes. "Your water supply is based upon the number of rangers in your squad and the number of canteens among them. Depending on the type of terrain you are traversing, your water supply is consumed at varying rates." Man, who'd have thought the end of the world would be so rough?
Original Wasteland heading to GOG and Steam
The original Wasteland will see a separate release on GOG.com and Steam, Wasteland 2 developer inXile announced in an update on its Kickstarter page. The game was slated to be packed in with copies of Wasteland 2 thanks to the assistance of EA, publishers of the first game. Now inXile can release the original post-apocalyptic RPG separately, thanks to a new agreement with the publisher. Wasteland 2 earned a whopping $2,933,252 on Kickstarter in April 2012, and its beta program was recently delayed to October, its initial launch date. Wasteland will still be free for all Wasteland 2 Kickstarter backers, and inXile has not named a price for the stand-alone version of the game.
Wasteland 2 delayed to allow for amplified player choice
inXile Entertainment's recent delay of Wasteland 2 is due to the studio's fondness for reactivity, Rock, Paper, Shotgun's interview with inXile CEO Brian Fargo reveals. Fargo says inXile is "hanging [its] hat on reactivity ... You can shoot or kill anybody in the whole game ... If someone joins your party, you can kick them out, kill them, whatever you want. There's whole sequences you're not gonna see later because you offed the guy ... There's no replacement, no NPC that joins you and acts just like him functionally. He's out. You're just not gonna see it." Fargo plans to use the tripled amount of funding requested for the game's development to "make a game that people talk about the way they do Fallout and Wasteland, 10 or 20 years from now ... I don't make any money from this." Wasteland 2 will offer its roster of NPCs to your God complex on Windows, Mac and Linux platforms at a to-be-determined date. Those who pledged $55 or more to the game's Kickstarter will be granted access to the beta that's planned for October.
Wasteland 2 delayed due to increased scope
A recent update to inXile Entertainment's Kickstarter page for Wasteland 2 revealed that the game's initial October release will instead mark the beginning of its beta testing. The delay stems from the game's Kickstarter gathering $2 million more than the requested funds. "This feature complete playable is about 6 weeks behind where I had wanted it to be but I can't be too surprised considering the increased scope," the statement reads. "We have been able to accomplish so much in so little time by our experience, fantastic team and tools." The next month will be spent implementing all basic gameplay mechanics, including the combat system, world map travel and AI functionality for all the characters you're inevitably going to slaughter in cold blood. Interplay and inXile founder Brian Fargo co-designed the original Wasteland in 1988 and is leading development for Wasteland 2. Fallout 1 and 2 composer Mark Morgan, Wasteland co-creator Michael Stackpole, and Fallout co-creator Jason Anderson are all involved with Wasteland 2. Those who donated $55 or more to Wasteland 2's Kickstarter campaign will gain access to the barren, desolate wasteland in October.
