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.

First WASTELAND 2 gameplay video

inXile have released the first gameplay video for their upcoming, Kickstarter-funded, retro-RPG, Wasteland 2.

Wasteland 2 is a stand-alone sequel to the original, released, way back in 1988. The new game features similar turn-based combat and text-based descriptions of events, but also a vastly more advanced graphics engine based on 3D models. It'll be interesting to see how this old-school style of gaming resonates with modern audiences, but there's a lot here that looks promising (particularly the fully-customisable UI). The game is due for release at the end of the year.

Gamer pays game creator $10K as an apology for pirating his game

Min-Liang Tan, the founder of pro-gaming peripheral company Razer, has given $10,000 to games developer Brian Fargo as an apology for pirating his game Wasteland a couple of decades ago. Fargo has been using the 'Kickstarter' system to raise funds for a potential Wasteland 2 and has recently passed his first goal of raising $900,000.


In a Tweet, Tan said

"I'm sorry for playing on a pirated copy of Wasteland years ago, I hope this makes up for it."

Fargo's startled reply was:

"Wow.. I just saw that you donated 10k... You more than made up for it. I am most grateful...You are forgiven... ;) Thanks for the support."

Fargo is legendary within the video games market for founding Interplay in 1983. He directly wrote and created Wasteland (released in 1988) and later worked on games such as the original Fallout, which was directly inspired by Wasteland. He also worked on the Baldur's Gate franchise. During the numerous tumults that shook Interplay in the early 2000s, he quit to found a new development company, inXile, which is now producing Wasteland 2.