DARK WINTER
The big brother of the played-out Fallout franchise becomes fresher with each new instalment, delivering a delightful blend of top-down tactical combat and sci-fi lunacy.
Wasteland 3 rules. Yet judging by the commentary surrounding it, there appears to be a lot of misconceptions about the latest iteration of inXile’s signature post-apocalyptic RPG franchise.
The first category of complaint is that the game is completely unbalanced. Critics baulk at how an end-game shotgun with a range extension mod can project a ‘cone of death’ across the entire map. Many complain that the game is far too easy on even the highest difficulty, because of the so-called ‘Alpha Strike’ effect. That is, if the human player goes first, it’s all too easy to wipe out the entire enemy team on the very first round, even with their superior numbers and astronomically level-scaled hit-points.
The second variety of gripe ties in to the plot, and how one of the faction choices available towards the endgame is geopolitically destabilising and profoundly stupid. What kind of ghoul would let warlords run roughshod over the remnants of an irradiated America?
Both of these lines of criticism are understandable, but both are wrong.
Wasteland 3 presents the player with multiple stackable rampantly over-powered game mechanics for a very good reason: because it’s fun. It’s fun to discover these exploits, and it’s fun to use them to make mutants explode like a blood sausage. If things get too easy, then it’s fun to put artificial constraints on yourself to make Supreme Jerk mode challenging – perhaps by playing without any Sniper or Melee characters.
The AI has its shortcomings, but that just makes you feel like a strategic genius when you target bunched-up opponents with your talking car’s goat mortar.
Then there’s the ability to make bad and amoral choices. Again, this is not a bug – it’s a feature. In the lead up to release Bryan Fargo made a big deal about how it was possible to recruit one of the games most despicable villains onto your Ranger team. You can also rob merchants, ally with slavers, take over a narcotics factory, aid cultists and genocidal robots, and put an army of cannibals in charge of Denver.
Wasteland 1 and 2 made it very clear that you simply can’t make everyone happy. Wasteland 3 goes further
– it gives you the power to make absolutely everyone miserable. Many games promise true consequences for moral choices, but Wasteland 3 delivers.
The bugs also drew a lot of complaints, and those were entirely justified; at launch the game was a pig’s breakfast. But inXile is improving. It took a whole year to get Wasteland 2 debugged, but Wasteland 3 saw its most egregious blockers banished after only a couple of months. The months ahead hold the promise of numerous quality-of-life improvements, and even DLC (ie. locations and quest lines cut during development). Several item descriptions suggest that a crafting system was planned at one stage, and data mining confirms this. While not essential, it’d be nice to have – especially if it lets you spam more over-powered disposable laser turrets.
There’s a multitude of subtle refinements, like the pared-back list of skills. You used to have to put a lot of points into ‘Smart Ass’ if you wanted to field the occasional zinger, but the new dialogue system lets you be rude to everyone.
In spite of its shaky start I’m immensely satisfied with Wasteland 3, and I have high hopes for the future of the franchise. My only fear is that now Microsoft also owns Bethesda, some mole-eyed bean-counter might crunch the numbers and calculate that Microsoft only really needs ONE studio that cranks out incredibly buggy fantasy and post-apocalyptic RPGs, and decides to dissolve inXile on the spot. But this fear is irrational. Microsoft is committed to supplying vast quantities of content to Xbox Game Pass subscribers, and it needs every Bard’s Tale and Torment it can muster.
The only real blemish on inXile’s record of late is the unfortunate matter of Autoduel. It turns out that they were being a tad cheeky when asserting that they held the rights to the video game version of Car Wars, and Steve Jackson spent a six figure sum in court to get the trademark back. An official port of the original 1985 cult classic is due to hit Steam soon. But I’m left wondering: What if? What if inXile was permitted to make a brand new Autoduel game? What would it be like? My gut tells me it would be very buggy – and very, very good.
Nothing is impossible. Stardock and Toys For Bob were able to reconcile their differences and commit to working together to create a future for Star Control. Maybe someday inXile and Steve Jackson Games will see eye to eye, and bring Autoduel into the 21st Century...