Wasteland developed by inXile Entertainment and published by Deep Silver will be available August 28th 2020 on Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC and Game Pass for both PC and Xbox.
Wasteland 3 starts where you left off in Wasteland 2, the Rangers are in trouble in Arizona and need to find support from someone to restore them as they once were. A man named the Patriarch from Colorado gets in contact with you asking you to round up his children who have all separated and started their own societies with some dark twists. In return for this seemingly simple mission, he will give you and Arizona enough supplies to rebuild. What starts simple, isn’t as simple as you think. Wasteland 3’s storyline is fantastic because as usual inXile have given an unprecedented amount of choice behind every action you take. I found myself totally immersed within the icy ruins of Colorado and I just wanted to explore everything the game had to offer. I won’t lie though, some of the choices can be tough to make, you’ll be left wondering if you made the right one, with a reputation system you’ve got to make sure you’re keeping the right people happy. I often thought some characters I came across were fairly decent or at-least neutral but then you realise the plot is so deep, sometimes people aren’t who you originally thought.
I created two characters as a partnership, myself and my partner. Wasteland 3 gives you a lot of control on who and what your character can be, I’m a nerd who likes hacking computers and uses a revolver/sniper combo. My partner is a first-aider who wields an assault rifle and an explosive crossbow. I also took on a companion along the way who is a sharpshooter with a very tragic backstory that you’ll see play-out in your game if you chose to do what is required of you. I enjoyed making my character my own, it felt like Fallout but way more in-depth, I’d make the wrong decisions, I’d make mistakes but that’s all part of the charm and character development. With so much control in my hands I really couldn’t stop playing, inXile has always given us titles where the fate is really in our hands. You often get games that state you have choices to make, consequences will be seen through-out but never like inXile do it and Wasteland 3 has you making difficult choices, even when it comes to combat. If you’re a fan of titles like this, this is an immediate pickup.
Wasteland 3 has a huge array of weapons, items, armours, clothing, vehicle parts and all sorts to keep you going and experimenting throughout, and yes, you heard me right, vehicle gameplay. The vehicle is how you traverse the state of Colorado but in battles, it can also be used to gain an advantage especially once you can modify it fully. This was helpful when I went vs giant mech robots or had enemies out of the range of my apocalyptic cow-boy character. Combat is turn-based and generally, I’m not a fan of turn-based but somehow inXile always seem to get the chemistry perfect enough to hook me right in, I felt that the system was fair, easy enough to learn with the onscreen tutorials that come up helps you learn as you go, so if you’re worried Wasteland 3 might be a bit too complicated to pick up, you’ll be fine, it’s quite easy. I must say though it is a big game and comes in at around 50 hours on a normal play-through if you want to experience everything, you’re easily looking at a lot more hours plus the replay-ability in this game is amazing.
Wasteland 3 is a beautiful game, full of life and things to do, with a huge array of side quests that feel meaning full to exploration that is often rewarded, it’s a joy to play through. What would the game be without a beautiful design? Wasteland 3 gets the apocalypse just right, the crumbling Colorado wastes look brilliant and most areas are explorable with tons of unique details. Below are my PC specs and how the game ran.
- Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-9400F CPU @ 2.90GHz (6 CPUs), ~2.9GHz
- Memory: 16384MB RAM
- Available OS Memory: 16300MB RAM
- NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060
It all ran smoothly on ultra settings and looked fantastic. Wasteland 3 pulls no stops at making it all look so good. Wasteland 3 with the extra time and budget also voiced every character in the game and I have to say it was great, it added to the overall experience. I loved the soundtrack as well, it’s a perfect fit, especially the song that plays in the tutorial mission boss fight.
Verdict
Wasteland 3 is good, I love it, it filled the gap that Fallout 76 left for me and brought so much more to the table. inXile is masters at their craft, always developing such interesting plots that genuinely give you choices with consequences, not just two or three choices at the end of the game. Every action I took played off in some way and to see it all play out like that was something else. Wasteland 3 is easily a top contender for being one of 2020’s best RPG’s.
9.5/10
Nerdy Bird Games 