Wednesday 28 September 2016

WASTELAND 3 announced

inXile Entertainment have announced development of Wasteland 3, the sequel to their 2014 post-apocalyptic RPG Wasteland 2. Like its predecessor, this game will be crowdfunded.



The head of inXile Entertainment, Brian Fargo, formerly worked for Electronic Arts, where he made the original Wasteland back in 1988, and then founded Interplay. When they were unable to create a sequel to Wasteland as EA refused to give up the rights, they instead created the Fallout video game series. After Interplay collapsed in the early 2000s, Fargo founded inXile and reacquired the Wasteland licence. In 2012 inXile launched a Kickstarter campaign for Wasteland 2, asking for $900,000 and eventually ending up with over $3 million. The game was released in late 2014 to strong critical acclaim, and a "Director's Cut" was then released a year later which upgraded almost every aspect of the game.

Wasteland 3 will feature radically enhanced graphics, including a much-improved scaling system. This will allow for cinematic cut scenes and action shots similar to those in XCOM and its sequel. The game will also be fully voiced and will have co-op multiplayer with players able to carry out quests in different parts of the world map simultaneously and have a knock-on effect on the other player's story (similar to what is being developed for Divinity: Original Sin II). The game will also feature an upgradeable home base and will be released on PC and console simultaneously.

This time around inXile are using the newer crowdfunding service Fig. Unlike Kickstarter, Fig acts as an investment plan and will see any profits from the game returned to the investors. inXile are targeting a budget of over $7 million for the game, mostly paid for by the profits from Wasteland 2, but will be seeking to raise $2.75 million from investors.

inXile are also finishing off two other games, both crowdfunded. Torment: Tides of Numenera is mostly completed and is in bug-fixing and QA ahead of an early 2017 release. Development is in full swing on The Bard's Tale IV, with a mid-to-late 2017 release date mooted. Wasteland 3 is more likely to come out in 2018 or 2019.

1 comment:

Carl said...

After all this time reading I wanted to send you an email about a new scifi novel I read, but I couldn't figure out how! I'm trying a comment instead. I haven't read anything in a while that's impressed me that isn't old, so check out 'Astral Fall.' Debut author, debut series. I think this one is going to be the next big thing by the time book 2 is out. I found it because it's an itunes pick FWIW. Hope this turns out to be a good recommendation https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29762364-astral-fall