Wasteland 3 Announced, Crowdfunding Once Again

inXile Entertainment's RPG Wasteland 2 revived a long-dead post-apocalyptic world with the help of crowdfunding, and now they're trying to return there. The studio today announced Wasteland 3, and it's no surprise that they're crowdfunding it again. They want to take the heroic Desert Rangers to frozen Colorado this time, giving them new toys like vehicles and an interesting take on cooperative multiplayer. They're taking their crowdfunding to a new locale too, planning to launch a Fig campaign in October.

Wasteland 3 will send a Desert Rangers team to Colorado for more squad-based RPG antics with turn-based combat and whatnot. They'll be building up a new base and a new reputation in this land where no one has heard of them, helping people or being a dick to them or whatever you fancy I suppose.

The co-op ideas are curious. You'll be able to join up with a pal and control your own squad of Rangers, same as regular cooperative multiplayer. Only, your games are also linked when you're not together, meaning they can complete quests and change the world when you're offline, leaving surprise consequences for you when you return. Or I believe that's the idea, anyway.

Wasteland 3's crowdfunding campaign will begin October 5th on Fig. You may not have heard much about Fig. The crowdfunding site was set up by folks mostly associated with games, and has an "advisory board" of developers too - including inXile's own CEO, Brian Fargo. Fig's twist is that, as well as doing the regular crowdfunding 'pay money, hopefully receive game + tat' gig, it also lets people actual invest and receive money back. Games going for Fig so far include Psychonauts 2 and Outer Wilds.

inXile will seek $2.75 million (£2.2 million), including up to $2.2 million (£1.7m) in equity. Fargo told Polygon they hope the investment side of Fig will counterbalance Kickstarter fatigue. "You can imagine that it gets difficult to get people’s attention with pure rewards-based funding when they haven't had the chance to play the last game they backed, or they haven’t backed one in a couple of years," he said.

I backed Wasteland 2 and, to be honest, haven't played it yet myself.