''Wasteland'' is an open world

post-apocalyptic Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction is a subgenre of speculative fiction in which the Earth's (or another planet's) civilization is collapsing or has collapsed. The apocalypse event may be climatic, such as runaway climate change; ast ...

role-playing video game series. The first game, ''

Wasteland Wasteland or waste land may refer to: * Desert or barren area * an uncultivated area of land, whether wooded or not, whether common land or not Art, entertainment, and media Comics * ''Wasteland'' (DC Comics), 1987–1989 anthology-style horror/ ...

'', was developed by Interplay in 1988, and was the predecessor to the ''Fallout'' games.

InXile Entertainment inXile Entertainment, Inc. is an American video game developer and a studio of Xbox Game Studios based in Tustin, California. Specializing in role-playing video games, inXile was founded in 2002 by Interplay co-founder Brian Fargo. The studi ...

developed the two sequels, ''

Wasteland 2 ''Wasteland 2'' is a post-apocalyptic role-playing video game developed by inXile Entertainment and published by Deep Silver. It is the sequel to 1988's ''Wasteland'', and was successfully crowdfunded through Kickstarter. After the postponement o ...

'' (2014) and ''

Wasteland 3 ''Wasteland 3'' is a role-playing video game developed by inXile Entertainment and published by Deep Silver. It is a sequel to ''Wasteland 2'' (2014) and was released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on August 28, 2020. It was po ...

'' (2020), based on crowdfunding.

''Wasteland'' (1988)

''Wasteland'' was developed by Interplay, which later inspired the ''Fallout'' series. The game was published by

Electronic Arts Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) is an American video game company headquartered in Redwood City, California. Founded in May 1982 by Apple employee Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer game industry and promoted the ...

. InXile Entertainment later remastered and re-released the game.

''Wasteland 2'' (2014)

'' was developed after

Brian Fargo Frank Brian Fargo (born December 15, 1962) is an American video game designer, producer, programmer and executive, and founder of Interplay Entertainment, inXile Entertainment and Robot Cache. Biography Early life A descendant of the family ...

obtained the rights from Electronic Arts in 2003. Fargo developed the game with his company inXile through crowdfunding in 2012. The game was released in 2014 for Linux, Mac and Windows, and was later ported to the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. InXile earned $12 million in revenue from the game. A director's cut of Wasteland 2 was released for the Nintendo Switch in 2018.

''Wasteland 3'' (2020)

'' has improved graphics but a shorter playtime of 50 hours compared to the second installment, which had over 100 hours, and is set in Colorado. It includes co-op multiplayer with two players, as well as an updated combat system similar to '' XCOM: Enemy Unknown''. The game was released on

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, w ...

macOS macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and lapt ...

, PlayStation 4,

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for ser ...

and

Xbox One The Xbox One is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. Announced in May 2013, it is the successor to Xbox 360 and the third base console in the Xbox series of video game consoles. It was first released in North America, parts of ...

in 2020.

Novellas

inXile had planned to set up two novella series for the franchise after releasing ''Wasteland 2''. These were to be called ''Rangers & Raiders'' and ''Cults & Criminals''. However the project was soon abandoned with only three digital novellas released and a fourth one authored by

Chris Avellone Chris Avellone is an American video game designer and comic book writer. He worked for Interplay and Obsidian Entertainment before working as a freelancer. He is best known for his work on role-playing video games such as '' Planescape: Torment' ...

being shelved. The three digital novellas for ''Wasteland 2'' were released alongside its "Director's Cut". Two of them, ''The Earth Transformed – Ghost Book I'' and ''Death Machines – Ghost Book II'', written by Michael A. Stackpole and Nathan Long, form part of a single narrative and feature Ghost, a clone who joins the Desert Rangers during the events of the first game. ''All Bad Things'' was meanwhile written by Stephen Blackmoore and focuses on Luke Samson, the founder of the religious cult called "God's Militia" which appears in ''Wasteland 2''. Those who bought the director's cut received the novellas for free. ''All Bad Things'' was also released in

paperback A paperback (softcover, softback) book is one with a thick paper or paperboard cover, and often held together with glue rather than stitches or staples. In contrast, hardcover (hardback) books are bound with cardboard covered with cloth, ...

format. In 2018, inXile gave away the novellas for free to those who purchased ''Wasteland – 30th Anniversary Edition''. Upon the release of ''Wasteland 3'', three more digital novellas were released and focus on characters from the game. ''Legend'' by

Ari Marmell Ari Marmell is an American novelist and freelance role-playing game writer. Novels His first novel, ''Gehenna: The Final Night'', was published in 2004 by White Wolf Publishing. ''Agents of Artifice,'' a media tie-in novel set in the Magic: The ...

focuses on Saul Buchanan, ''No Way Home'' by Carrie Cuinn focuses on Angela Deth, and ''Ironclad'' by Matt Wallace focuses on Ironclad Cordite. They were given away for free as part of the game's "Digital Deluxe Edition".

References

External links