Double Fine’s super success with Kickstarter led to fans ”pinging” Fargo about another Wasteland. He admits he ”dared to get a little excited” about the prospect of reviving the IP.
If such a sequel were to go ahead it would be isometric, ”which saves tremendously” on artwork which ”in turn allows us to script out numerous outcomes” for the game.
As it would be a sequel it means a lot of the hard work is already done. ”We also have the advantage of knowing the base mechanics from the first game which saves trial and error but the real key will be in the pre-production. We need to design out every locale, conversation, item and NPC before we start coding… and I mean EVERY detail,” he said.
”This way the game is ensured to be deep and production is kept efficient and focused. We will also use that time to solicit feedback from key hardcore players such as yourself to question us hard on the design decisions. Changes are free at the writing stage so ideas can be changed and incorporated without fear of making the budget become impossible. Also the original Wasteland team was pretty small so efficiency was key then also.”
At present Brian Fargo is running Hunted developer inXile. He was also instrumental in A Bard’s Tale and Fallout 1 and 2. Wasteland was the IP that led to the creation of Fallout. Fargo reveals he and an inXile colleague were actually working on a Wasteland project a while back.
”I was quite surprised at how little interest there was,” Fargo said.
”Here we had the co-creator of Fallout working with the lead designer of Wasteland (Mike Stackpole) and the guy who helped produce them both all on the heels of a massive success with Fallout 3.”
”Publishers just had no interest in a party-based RPG and they felt like they would need to go up against the production costs of BioWare which are in the tens of millions of dollars.”
”It was frustrating for both of us as we had fans on one side pinging us constantly for a new Wasteland but we just had no way to finance it. Jason did a fantastic job on the design and story material so you can bet we fully plan on using it in this game,” he continued.
”I’m fortunate to have had Jason spend close to a year on design materials. We really had a great time envisioning what it could be and I’m excited that it might finally become a reality… but of course that is about to be up to the public’s support.” It seems Fargo has been convinced to give fans a chance to put their money where their mouth is via Kickstarter.
”It needs the right combination of nostalgia and newness to shine and we have much of that content created,” Fargo explained. ”I really look forward to creating atmosphere with music and sound on this one. Good audio can set the tone in really powerful ways and Fallout is a great example of mood done well.”
Wasteland will release on PC and mobile platforms depending on the money raised.
