Wasteland Wasteland 3 Pre-Release Thread [GO TO NEW THREAD]

[Grotesque]

That’s some cast!

A guy who had a non speaking part in a movie 40 years ago mainly because he had a bit of a monkey face as a kid. A comedian nobody cares about anymore’s great granddaughter. And the gal who said that thing!

I hear they narrowly missed out on landing Charo’s pool boy.

what a cunt.
that's what a shitty life does that to you.

 

[Roguey]

Just want to play it, hate waiting for this new Friday release shit on. What ever happen to shit comes out on Tuesday

A number of people successfully argued that releasing a game right before a weekend when most people will have the most time to play it is better than the near-beginning of the week.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

is it cracked yet

 

[santino27]

Just want to play it, hate waiting for this new Friday release shit on. What ever happen to shit comes out on Tuesday

A number of people successfully argued that releasing a game right before a weekend when most people will have the most time to play it is better than the near-beginning of the week.

Release on Tuesday so you can patch the crippling game bug that somehow snuck through beta before the weekend hits. Friday is for netflix shows and Trump scandals.

 

[Roguey]

Release on Tuesday so you can patch the crippling game bug that somehow snuck through beta before the weekend hits. Friday is for netflix shows and Trump scandals.

With the exception of consoles, going gold is a thing of the past, problems like this aren't likely to happen.

It's also for movies.

 

[santino27]

Release on Tuesday so you can patch the crippling game bug that somehow snuck through beta before the weekend hits. Friday is for netflix shows and Trump scandals.

It's also for movies.

Well, yes, and for releasing bad news press releases and (often) for layoffs and a few hundred other things.

Regardless, plenty of games (even singleplayer games) still have problems on day 1 launch in this post-gold era, so giving yourself some space before the weekend seems wise.

 

[theLorry]

Any word on if Wasteland 3 will be included in the Xbox Game Pass for PC (that you can try for $1) on the 28th? The info I could find isn't very specific, it just says:

Wasteland 3


Available August 28, 2020


PRE-ORDER NOW


Coming soon to Xbox Game Pass

https://www.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-game-pass/pc-games/#topofpage

 

[Infinitron]

All games from Microsoft first party studios are on Game Pass.



https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2020/08/25/wasteland-3-how-to-create-friends-and-influence-people/

Wasteland 3: How to Create Friends and Influence People

In Wasteland 3, a journey of (at least) 80 hours begins with a single… character select screen. This isn’t an exaggeration; as soon as you start a new game and watch the opening cinematic, you’re immediately staring at Yuri and Spence, two of the pre-rolled Rangers you can start your adventure with.

This is a big decision, as you’ll be spending dozens upon dozens of hours with these characters. So as someone who’s been taking these pre-built characters out for a spin, as well as rolling a few of my own, here’s what I’ve learned.

The pre-rolls are safe picks, and there’s no harm in choosing from them. Looking at the myraid traits and abilities, you may not know what these elements are (especially more esoteric stuff like “Weird Science”). So even if you think you want to run with a pre-roll duo, it’s worth poking around the character creator just to learn more about different Attributes, Skills, and Quirks, so you can optimize these characters as they level up.

Starting up a near-final build of the game, I decided to delve into customization to make the characters I knew I’d enjoy playing. Besides obvious customizables like name, appearance, and voice (Joker here!), the first choice of consequence is to select your characters’ background from a variety of options such as Grease Monkey (bonus damage to robots and vehicles) and Explodomaniac (explosive damage bonus +15%), less transparent choices such as Mannerite (referencing a religious cult from Wasteland 2, granting “Kiss Ass” +1) and Goat Killer (critical chance +5%??). The important thing is to peruse the descriptions, they’re a fun read.

Now you get into the meat of the customization suite, selecting starting weapons (from all manner of projectile and melee weapons), Attributes, Skills, and an optional Quirk. When selecting, I recommend creating complementary characters; this allows you to explore more of what the game has to offer from a combat perspective, as well as to offer more options as you explore Colorado and engage its denizens.

A great example from the pre-roll characters is the Father and Daughter starter duo, who I played with through the backer beta last spring. They balance a nice mix of long-range and close-range attacks, with a head start on stealthy skills. Beyond just battle variety; having characters who specialize in Mechanics, Leadership, intimidation (Hard Ass), will help open up more ways to resolve conflicts than just shooting. Don’t worry, there’ll be plenty of that too.

Applying that concept to starting weapons, balance this variety with the type of game you like to play. Mix a brawler with a sniper, an explosives expert with a melee character. Just note that weapons have varied Action Point costs. At the outset, a sniper is only going to get off one shot per turn, with very little mobility. Meanwhile, a Small Arms specialist will be flitting around the field to flank entrenched enemies, liberally utilizing items, or even getting a few shots off in a single turn. Either way, know that you’ll have a chance to experiment with a wide range of armaments relatively early in the game, so you don’t need to spend an hour deliberating, as I did.

Once you’ve selected that starting weapon, build appropriate attributes around it. While we’d all love to be strong, Awareness is a more important trait if you selected sniper rifle as your starting weapon. Note that even decidedly un-dangerous-sounding attributes such as Charisma are valuable, increasing your Strike abilities (which are chargeable super attacks), as well as allowing you to gain more experience in battle.

Next, you’ll allocate points into Skills, where things can get a bit overwhelming. That’s ok! Know that you only have four points to spend here and you’re probably never going to max them all out, so focus on three or four skills per character that are likely to meet your play and personality style. Generally, the only good time to overlap is with First Aid, or if you really want multiple characters to specialize in the same weapon types. And do *not* forget social skills, even Level 1 skills have value early on. As far as things like Toaster Repair, know that everything has value… eventually.

Finally, you can choose a Quirk – these are optional, but super interesting. Think of it as a step forward/step back. A good example is Sadomasochist – you deal 33% more melee or ranged damage… but also receive 33% more damage for that “glass cannon” feel. Unlike skills and attributes, once you choose a Quirk, you’re stuck with it. Of these Faustian bargains, “Waste Roamer” seems like the best deal, granting 100% resistance to a wide variety of nasty conditions at the expense of 15% less experience- especially when paired with the Bookworm background which nullifies a third of that penalty. Or for pure entertainment value, consider selecting Mime – their character will behave like a mime, including pantomiming all their weapons for the whole game!

However you choose, don’t put too much pressure on yourself. You’ll fill out your cast with a large, colorful group of recruits who are likely to buttress your weaknesses or augment your strengths. You’ll even get another shot at customizing characters a couple hours into the game, when you’ll likely have a better feel for your tastes (and perhaps a rocket launcher in your inventory that your existing characters can’t use). So most importantly, select, or create, characters who you enjoy spending time with. Because you’re going to spend a lot of time with them!

Wasteland 3 launches for Xbox One, Windows 10, and Steam, including Xbox Game Pass for Console and PC on August 28th. Those who have pre-ordered or are Xbox Game Pass members can pre-download now, and be ready for launch time. Good luck out there!

 

[Atchodas]

Can this game be good ? oh god please let it be good

 

[Whisper]

Someone played beta? It is good game? How much freedom in exploration?

 

[Haplo]

Can this game be good ? oh god please let it be good

Even though I was burned with WL2, I intend to find out. Might be worth a month or two of Xbox Gamespass subscription.

 

[Saduj]

what a cunt.
that's what a shitty life does that to you.

Yes, clearly one's susceptibility to overhyped marketing is directly related to quality of life. You're quite astute.

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

In Wasteland 3, a journey of (at least) 80 hours begins with a single… character select screen. This isn’t an exaggeration;

WTF I AM READING

An RPG starting with a character screen? Who would have thought! It's good that the helpful guy made sure to emphasize that this is not an exaggeration, otherwise I would totally think it is.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

going to be honest, most of the premade characters seem awful. I hope the rest of the game is better.

 

[Infinitron]

Reviews are out.

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.pcgamesn.com/wasteland-3/review 9/10

Wasteland 3 review – brilliantly bloody
A dark, bewitching tale told to the backdrop of a bleak and blood-spattered Colorado

Wasteland 3 is a game of extremes, there are no half measures, no middle ground – only wrong or right, death by an obese dracula-impersonator or complete mercy, butcher everyone or walk free. It’s a game where you begin with a holy moral compass and it quickly weathers into ‘how does this benefit me exactly?’

It’s an apocalypse game where everyone is either a softly spoken sweetheart or a gut guzzling sycophant. It’s a fictional future of the most extreme depravity and it’ll force you into uncomfortable places and ask you hard questions. All the extremities and bloated stereotypes should be a hard pill to swallow, but you glug it down like it’s the apocalypse, and you haven’t had a taste of bitter bourbon in a long time.

Now, though, I’m stood in front of The Patriarch. After a bloody opening scene in which half my Desert Ranger squad, Team November, are decimated on entering Colorado, I’m quickly whisked through the tutorials for the remainder of the trek to reach him. He’s the ruler of Colorado, and we are seeking supplies and aid. He’s willing to help, for a cost.

I quickly learn this is the way of Wasteland 3 – everything comes at a cost. The Patriarch is a big-built brute with a sledgehammer he’s more than happy to use. He sits on a throne of empty rocket shells adorned with the American flag and speaks firmly in a low, authoritative tone. He’s one of the many stereotypes of the apocalypse: a blood-hungry gang called The Dorseys, who call the next phase of the apocalypse ‘The Deluge of Blood’; a pious cult of mechanical Ronald Reagan worshippers called Gippers; a group of corpse-tossing outcasts called Godfishers; and many, many eccentric lost souls that you’ll come across along the way.

Spoiler

You can recruit some people as companions – two at any one time – along with up to four Rangers to form a party of six. It’s a good idea to choose a party that compliments each other, and Wasteland 3 does a good job at giving you polite nods in the right direction. The RPG elements in Wasteland 3 are mesmerising and addictive, there’s plenty to tuck into as you level up including perks, skills points, and attributes. I spend hours refining my ragtag gang of rangers and randoms, from cowgirl Lucia Wesson to the drunken hick Scothmo.



I go through about ten hours of gameplay feeling pretty comfortable and confident in combat, until I’m not. It’s in that moment I start to run out of ammo, supplies, medkits, and feel the full weight of my decision making. You can’t pick every fight in Wasteland 3, and you shouldn’t. Resources are precious and costly, and although there are tons of various side missions to gain money and rewards, it can sometimes cost you more in resources than it’s worth. You are in the frozen wastes, after all.

Combat will fleece you of supplies and, although, yeah, it’s fun to fight, sometimes it’s fun to live as well. Encounters can’t always be avoided, though, as dialogue and progressing the game can be locked behind having enough of a certain attribute or skill to meet a criteria.



If you do find yourself in a fight, the turn-based combat starts off a little easy at the start of the game, and becomes a logistical fever dream of ensuring your squad is up to taking on each fight. This might be where you develop ‘favourites’, again not down to their compelling wit, but how much your Rangers and companions bring to the fight. The variety in enemies gives each fight its own flavour and requires you to think about your approach, making for some intense battles that I’ll remember for a long time.

It’s in these moments – when the gameplay audio dims and an old country song plays as a soundtrack to a fight, subsequently fading out in the bloody aftermath as I’m left surrounded by corpses – that it feels like it should be a time to reflect. Like the scene in Red Dead Redemption 2 when riding away from a shoot out to Unshaken by D’Angelo, thinking about how needless all the bloodshed is. Yet, I don’t feel that way in Wasteland 3 when the fighting’s over. There’s no remorse in my actions, it’s a cutthroat business and I’m here to do a job, to survive.

And survival is tough in Wasteland 3’s open-world, and although I’m free to explore, I usually only go to areas if a mission warrants it, getting around using the new vehicle called the Kodiak which you can pimp out in your Ranger HQ. As well as churning up the snowy roads and making mincemeat of bystanding deer, you can also use your vehicle in combat. I was never a fan of Phoenix Point’s equivalent mechanic, but it not only works in Wasteland 3, it’s pivotal to survival.



Using your souped-up snowmobile to explore Colorado is wonderfully authentic, although the loading screens between areas and the time it takes to navigate to each location can be a little tedious. You’ll also almost certainly be ambushed by road-side dwellers looking to steal your goods, or just fight you, because.

You can, and will piss people off, as well as earn a name for yourself in Colorado by completing missions or interacting with the right people. The fame meter can count for and against you, and balancing your relationships with all the different factions will always cause someone to dislike you, it’s just up to you who that is. I realise early on that +1 in reputation can quickly dissolve into a -15 with just one, wrong, reply. Like I said, everything will cost you. One of the first decisions in the game is severe, I had to take a moment to decide what to do, but that swiftly changes as the game progresses, I push aside what is right, what is fair, and become utterly selfish in my decisions.



Wasteland 3 does offer moments of intimacy and nuggets of information in the overheard conversations or happened-upon interactions. You can glean information about the situation in Colorado, or follow a robot to hidden treasure, but it’s true that a yellow smiley face in the snow is the closest you’ll get to warmer times.

Although it doesn’t offer anything immediately innovative, it slams the nostalgia card down on the table in a brash, unforgiving way that makes this game incredibly moreish. It takes you on a moral journey and corrupts you, making everything you thought was so unfeasible about an apocalypse seem so normal. You can feel everything that it’s borrowed and given back to the Fallout series, along with the return of previous Wasteland characters. And if I could offer just one word of advice? TRUST NO ONE.

Wasteland 3 review
Lurid characters, a deep RPG system, and captivating combat set in an unhinged apocalypse - inXile Entertainment’s latest shouldn’t be missed.

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.pcgamer.com/wasteland-3-review/ 84/100

WASTELAND 3 REVIEW
Make friends with weirdos in snowy Colorado.

My squad of hardened wasteland warriors charges into battle alongside a goat, a swearing parrot, a cyborg chicken, and a cat who wears a little military hat. They may sound goofy, but by the end of the game that cat was one of my most consistent damage dealers.

The Wasteland games have always mixed grit with silliness, offsetting slavery and cannibalism with mutant killer bunnies and the like. That's one of the things that hasn't changed about Wasteland 3, which is still an RPG where malfunctioning toasters can be cracked open for sweet loot if you've got the Toaster Repair skill.

What's different is the setting. The endless sand of Arizona and California has been traded for the endless snow of Colorado, with your characters as a squad of Desert Rangers who are way out of their depth. You're sent north to cut a deal with the prosperous local leader for supplies your home desperately needs, which means helping the Patriarch of Colorado Springs round up his rebellious offspring. Each of his three large adult children have sided with different bizarre factions, from Reagan worshippers to Hispanic murderclowns, and you're thrust into this political shitfight with only your wits, an AI car, a bunch of guns, and those three points you probably shouldn't have put in Toaster Repair.

Another thing that's different is that Wasteland 3 is more streamlined, with less of the deliberately old school clunkiness of Wasteland 2. That was a game where you'd find a loot container then have the character with Perception check it for shenanigans, then a character with Alarm Disarming or Demolitions render it safe, then if it was locked use Lockpicking or Safecracking or Brute Force to actually open the damn thing. Now some of those skills have been deprecated (Lockpicking also lets you open safes, hallelujah), and if you click on something the character who has the right skill will just automatically interact with it.

The turn-based combat's been streamlined as well. When you mouse over a position before moving it'll highlight who you can attack from there just like XCOM 2, complete with revised percentages over their heads. Gone is the tickertape full of text describing your attacks in favor of a UI that's less diegetic, but easier to get to grips with.

At least, most of the time it is. Equipment sits in a bottomless shared pool rather than needing to be distributed individually, but that means in no time at all you'll have a proliferation of frozen ferrets, yellow snowballs, wigs from dead clowns, and other random trash that's confusing to sort through. There are filters, but utility items and cybernetic mods don't have their own categories so you'll have to scroll around to find them. At least there's a 'sell junk' button when you're trading to reduce some of the clutter.

Precision strikes
Back to the combat: When characters attack their strike meter goes up, eventually letting them unleash a precision strike attack. With most guns that means the option to target a body part, whether it's a headshot for bonus damage, a fuel tank for a chance to trigger an explosion, or a robot's CPU to turn them against their allies. Other weapons have their own precision strikes, like rocket launchers gaining a radioactive bonus to damage somehow, transforming into nukes mid-flight. These precision strikes make clicking around to get an 88 percent chance to hit rather than an 85 a bit more varied and exciting.

My one beef with the battles is that my animal sidekicks, robots, and that one NPC who followed me for half the game but didn't speak English weren't under my control. They'd charge in like headless chickens, even the ones who weren't actually chickens with metal skulls, inevitably running through patches of fire or radiation and needing to be healed. After a while I got sick of reviving them, and when the cyborg chicken died because a combat ended with her still bleeding and I couldn't get to her with a suture kit in time—there's no way to pause and issue commands outside of combat, which means a clumsy rush to heal any remaining status effects every time a fight ends—I just let her die. I kept the cat alive till the end of the game because I'm not a complete monster, but everyone else got left behind once I was sick of shepherding them.

Still, the combat stayed interesting even as I got near the 50-hour mark, which I can't say of Wasteland 2. I know plenty of people loved it, but I found the second half a bit dull both because of combat that was a solved puzzle and quests that fizzled out. This time I stayed interested all the way through, both due to fights that had more twists to them—sometimes you get to bring your car and its mounted cannon, and often you can stealth into position, crouching behind cover before attacking with your character who has the Sneaky Shit skill for bonus damage—and also because the story held my attention.

Up close
The Wasteland games tend to have interesting factions but not interesting characters, and the only one I consistently remember is Angela Deth because her name's ridiculous. Here I felt a little more attached to characters like Scotchmo the comedy alcoholic and Vic the taunting serial killer because I'd seen them up close. It feels more personal.

While most conversations play out from a slightly zoomed-in version of the isometric view, some major characters get highlight first-person scenes where you choose your dialogue options while they give mocapped performances full of expressive interactions, like taking a swig from a bottle or fondling a weapon. They reminded me of the theatrical NPCs of Vampire: The Masquerade—Bloodlines, which is high praise.

That said, I struggle to remember the name of the cyborg gang leader or the green-skinned Ranger I recruited. Only a few of the members of your own party get much personality, as there's no way to talk to them except by wandering around hoping to stumble over a conversation trigger. Even the pre-generated pairs of PCs you can choose from if you don't want to make your own aren't real chatty.

Like its predecessors, Wasteland 3 is the kind of game where the most interesting story is the one you make, usually thanks to that juxtaposition of seriousness and silliness. Maybe you created a character who dressed like a clown and inflicted status effects on enemies by throwing yellow snowballs at them, or maybe you went into battle with a herd of vicious animals—at least until you got sick of them and abandoned even the swearing parrot to bleed out in the snow.

THE VERDICT
84

WASTELAND 3
A wilfully strange setting explored through a predictable but enjoyable old school RPG that's been streamlined just enough.

 

[Xeon]

Would have been kinda cool if InXile gave Codex early review copy.

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.windowscentral.com/wasteland-3-review 5/5
https://www.nme.com/reviews/game-re...olid-if-unremarkable-combat-heavy-rpg-2737834 3.5/5
https://www.gamesradar.com/wasteland-3-review/ 4/5
https://screenrant.com/wasteland-3-review/ 4/5
https://www.digitaltrends.com/game-reviews/wasteland-3-review/ 4/5
https://attackofthefanboy.com/reviews/wasteland-3-review/ 4.5/5
https://www.thegamer.com/wasteland-3-review/ 5/5
https://powerup-gaming.com/2020/08/26/wasteland-3-review-pc/ 9.7/10
https://wccftech.com/review/wasteland-3-nothing-without-providence/ 9/10
https://cogconnected.com/review/wasteland-3-review/ 90/100
https://www.dualshockers.com/wasteland-3-review-pc-xb1-ps4/ 9/10
https://www.gamerevolution.com/review/657188-wasteland-3-review-ps4-pc-xbox-one 4/5
https://www.trustedreviews.com/reviews/wasteland-3 4/5
https://www.shacknews.com/article/119969/wasteland-3-review-one-hell-of-a-nuclear-payload 9/10
https://checkpointgaming.net/review...-review-an-immersive-world-full-of-character/ 9/10
https://www.cgmagonline.com/reviews/wasteland-3-review/ 9/10
https://nichegamer.com/reviews/wasteland-3-review/ 3.5/5
https://pureplaystation.com/review-wasteland-3-ps4-pc/2020/08/ 9/10
https://www.player2.net.au/2020/08/wasteland-3-living-in-the-fallout-has-never-been-this-much-fun A
https://www.godisageek.com/reviews/wasteland-3-review/ 9.5/10
https://www.gamewatcher.com/reviews/wasteland-3-review/13205 8.5/10
https://gamingbolt.com/wasteland-3-review-my-evil-ways 9/10
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020...ost-apocalyptic-tactics-ethics-and-economics/
https://www.indiegamewebsite.com/2020/08/26/wasteland-3-review/ 9/10
https://www.pcinvasion.com/wasteland-3-review-pc/ 8.5/10
https://thenerdstash.com/wasteland-3-review-a-post-apocalypse-done-right/ 5/5
https://www.savingcontent.com/2020/08/26/wasteland-3-review/ 5/5
https://fextralife.com/wasteland-3-review-baldurs-gate-meets-x-com/ 8.3/10

 

[cpmartins]

Where do I even go theses days for a good review? Every single main-stream "gaming" site is utter and complete trash and I don't want to youtube it in fears of spoilage

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/...a-devilish-satire-of-post-apocalyptic-america

Wasteland 3 review: a devilish satire of post-apocalyptic America
The state of things.

inXile's old-school RPG is the Fallout game we've been craving.

Before Wasteland 3 begins, the developers at inXile Entertainment present the player with a message. "Wasteland 3 is a work of fiction," we're told. "Ideas, dialogue, and stories we created early in development have in some cases been mirrored by our current reality. Our goal is to present a game of fictional entertainment, and any correlation to real-world events is purely coincidental."

It's not long before you're in front of the Patriarch, a man who rules Colorado with a toxic mixture of propaganda and violence. You have come to ask for help. The Rangers back home are in dire straits and they have sent you to work for the Patriarch in exchange for the resources they need to survive. This work turns out to be solving the Patriarch's family squabble. His kids are playing up, and he needs someone to bring them in.

Three kids, each holed up in some part of Colorado, each plotting against their dictatorial father in their own way. One son is a sadistic drug dealer who's got an army of "Breathers" off their tits on drugs. Another son is a genius level nerd who has joined forces with the Gippers, a religious cult that worships a Ronald Reagan AI. And the other, his daughter, is the most dangerous of all - but perhaps the most reasonable. She wants power for herself, but at what cost?

This is the setup: you deal with the Patriarch's children, and the Patriarch will help the Rangers out. But things are so much more complicated than that - and brilliantly so. As you slowly build up your new Rangers headquarters, filling it with essential staff such as a cook, an armourer, a doctor and mechanics for your garage, you start to realise just how broken Colorado is. Not just on the surface, either, but underground, near the core.

The Patriarch wants to do a deal. A great deal.

Spoiler

This is the brilliance of Wasteland 3. It sets its stall out early, telling you how fucked up everything is, and then just keeps on ramping up. The Marshals are the Patriarch's police force - or maybe that should be private army - and yes, they are corrupt, they are violent, and they are brutal. A former member of their ranks joined my party, and I'd have conversations with him about the Marshals and their... tactics. They are made in the image of their leader, the Patriarch, a man who has erected statues of himself in his honour, a man who sits on a throne of guns and bombs in a palace drenched in gaudy gold.

It gets better. Colorado Springs has a refugee problem. The Marshals want to put a stop to the flood of people who are desperate enough to make the dangerous journey to the city in the hope of finding food and shelter. You see these people huddled around fires on the freezing streets. They are a faction. You have a reputation gauge with them. They are begging for help.

You see where this is all going, how it all feels in this, the year of our lord 2020. I hate it all, but what's brilliant about Wasteland 3 is it lets me hate its monsters, and its monsters hate me back. I am venting, unleashing my rage on the monsters of Wasteland 3. I want to burn it all to the ground, and Wasteland 3 understands this, and reacts. Every turn of events comes with a handful of choices. You can steer Colorado, almost micromanage it, turning the oil tanker, pressing the self-destruct button. As one of the game's standout songs proclaims: are you washed in the blood of the lamb? By the time this game is over, I certainly will be.

Now that's harsh, Wasteland 3. We've just met.

Colorado is a place rich with detail and, most impressively, dialogue. The writing is wonderful, the voice acting tremendous and it's everywhere - as you walk past NPCs, as you mill about your headquarters, even between your party members as you're exploring. Wasteland 3 is a funny game, and all sorts of funny, too. It's slapstick (I accidentally blew up a vendor in town and one of the bystanders commented to say, that's got to hurt, and I couldn't help but laugh). It's juvenile (I stopped to listen to a few Rangers complain about farts). It's thirsty (you can star in a porn movie - or ask one of your companions to do it). There are some solid puns, which I respect. One dialogue option, after meeting a poor man who has his feet nailed to the floor, reads: "You shouldn't stand for that." And then there's the black humour that runs throughout Wasteland 3. This is a depressing, gory, disgusting, sadistic post-apocalyptic world, with death all around. Corpses are common. People are insane. There are cannibals, creepy clowns, fanatics, evil scientists, ultra violent gang leaders, mob bosses, hermits who really should take those posters down, synths who only want to be understood, and bounty hunters who want nothing but to destroy them. I'm really quite impressed with how inventive inXile's character designers have been here. And with such characters, terrible things happen. But then Wasteland 3 makes a mockery of it all and all you can do is laugh. America has become one sick joke and I find it pretty hilarious to be honest.

I press on, and pressing on is one of the best and worst things about Wasteland 3. This is a mammoth game, and it's really, really long. I'm 55 hours in and it feels halfway through. I'm doing most of the side quests, exploring every nook and cranny as any RPG completionist should, and stopping to investigate when I spot cool distractions. There is a lot of game here, not particularly in-depth, or punctuated by game-changing new ideas, just solid game I'm having a blast working through. Explore, your party of six running about the map from an isometric camera angle, then turn-based combat. Back to HQ for repairs and supplies, have a chat and then it's out again, your tank trundling through the snow out on the world map, the occasional random encounter disrupting your progress. You might even see a giant enemy mech stomping about, a looming large world encounter I failed the first time and am scared to try again.

The combat is fine - not as good as XCOM's, but along those lines. It packs a punch, though I love the spectacle of it all. There's a decent variety of tools of destruction, and lots of different types of characters to use. I've got a sort of mad scientist in my party, a character who uses an energy weapon to scramble the minds of my enemies so they attack each other. I recruited a cannibal who wants revenge on the Patriarch so bad he was willing to join my party, and all I use him for is running up to people and blowing them up with a punch. It's great fun.

Wasteland 3's future is informed by the 80s. It's all over the game.

The settlements, though, are where this game shines. Denver is up there with the best Wasteland 3 has to offer. It's home to the aforementioned Ronald Reagan AI and his "wives" - yes, plural. Reagan lives in a creaking metal statue that shoots lasers from its eyes, dishing out justice in the name of AMERICA! Next door is a Machine Commune built into a spaceship that was in orbit when the bombs fell. Inside I had one of the most memorable chats I've ever had with a computer in a video game. I still feel lucky to have made it out alive.

Eventually, I travelled up to Aspen, to a fancy getaway lodge favoured by the Patriarch and Colorado's elite. This incredible setpiece is multi-layered, demands you've got a decent spread of skills in your party, and is home to one of the most creepy characters in the game: a wheelchair-bound woman who exists in "reality", such as it is, but leads a terrifying group who are lost in the "dream" - a drug-fuelled state they have come to worship. Aspen goes places. It really does. Whatever you do, don't drain the pool.

Where Wasteland 3 falls down is that it is rough around the edges. Undoubtedly, Wasteland 3 is more polished than its predecessor, with fewer significant bugs and user interface annoyances. But it still has its problems. Sometimes things don't work quite as they should, a tooltip here, an effect there. I encountered a bug that prevented me from progressing the story because a robot I spawned during a fight ended up blocking a hallway. Thankfully I was able to go back to a previous save and fight the encounter again, with only half an hour lost. You do get this kind of thing every now and then.

And much of Wasteland 3 is good for the genre but not quite standout. It has all the old-school RPG stuff you'd expect it to: character progression, a focus on character builds, options only available to you if you pass skill checks, turn-based party combat, all that good stuff. And it is good here. But I'm in it for the world, for the atmosphere, for the music (oh, the music is brilliant!), for the characters, their dialogue and their voice acting - all American twangs, a throaty Wild West drawl dragged through a voice box. inXile really has done a fantastic job nailing the Wasteland tone and atmosphere here. It's the kind of Fallout game I've missed, which has a wonderful "circle of life" ring to it.

As you explore and level up, as you work your way through the primary and secondary quests, you come to realise a confrontation with the Patriarch is inevitable. You're going to have to do something about him, the man who's made Colorado great again. inXile's message is irrelevant, really. Wasteland 3 is a no-holds barred teardown of the American Dream, a parody of a nation that is now beyond parody. It is a satire you get to direct, and I heartily recommend doing so.

 

[Kruno]

I already bought the game. I really hope it has dragon shouts.

I just hope it comes out in a state similarly to Skyrim when it first came out; what a perfect release that was!

 

[Infinitron]

First 17 minutes of gameplay at IGN:



(but we already saw this content in the beta)

 

[Dodo1610]

Unity strikes again, lots of loading everywhere and loading screen can last up to a minute according to german Gamestar magazine + frame drops during rare big fights; on a Intel Core i5-8600K with 16 GB RAM and Geforce RTX 2070) during combat
https://www.gamestar.de/artikel/wasteland-3-test-video-review-besser-als-fallout,3361240,seite3.html

 

[Gangrelrumbler]

Where do I even go theses days for a good review? Every single main-stream "gaming" site is utter and complete trash and I don't want to youtube it in fears of spoilage

You wait 2-5 years for a proper RPG Codex review of course.