Microsoft (also) buys inXile Entertainment

Hot on the heels of the news that Microsoft has bought CRPG masterminds Obsidian Entertainment, it has also been confirmed that Microsoft has acquired fellow RPG studio inXile. Unlike Obsidian's acquisition, which was widely anticipated, inXile's is a surprise.

inXile Entertainment was founded in 2002 by Bryan Fargo shortly after he quit the company he founded back in the early 1980s, Interplay, after it fell into financial mismanagement involving outside investors. The company survived its first decade by making 3D console ports and then games for mobile devices.

In 2012 the company launched a crowdfunding campaign via Kickstarter for a new RPG, Wasteland 2 (a sequel to the classic Electronic Arts RPG Wasteland, which in turn had inspired the original Fallout). Released in 2014, Wasteland 2 was a significant sales and critical success. The company followed this up with Torment: Tides of Numenera (2017), a "spiritual successor" to the classic Interplay CRPG Planescape: Torment. Despite strong reviews, Torment sold poorly.

inXile's most recent game, The Bard's Tale IV (2018), attracted mixed critical notices and has also apparently not sold well. This pattern of low sales for their games and the reduced income from crowdfunding - although it should be noted that both Obsidian and inXile moving from the very-well-known Kickstarter platform to the obscure Fig system would not have helped - has likely made it necessary to consider selling the company.

inXile have almost completed work on Wasteland 3, which is due for release in 2019 and will now presumably be a Microsoft-branded game.

Intriguingly, both Obsidian and inXile started as Interplay and unusually (given the passage of 20 years) many of the same people work at both companies, raising the interesting prospect of them perhaps being merged to work on future projects, effectively recreating the "good old days" of Interplay in the 1990s.

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.