Were celebrating inXiles 20th year as a game studio with a look back through our history; where we came from, obstacles along the way, and our studios future. But its the challenges that made us who we are, and were sharing never before heard stories about our history, our games (including some that were never released), and how becoming an Xbox Game Studio has changed our trajectory forever. [previewyoutube=lzAna_ovGfQ;full][/previewyoutube] As youll learn in the documentary, its really our fans and those that helped support us directly through crowdfunding that kept the studio going, and wed like to once again thank anyone who backed a game, told a friend about us, or even just liked a post promoting a backer campaign. Even those small interactions absolutely made a difference in our lives, and we survived as a studio on the support of people who like to play the kinds of games we like making. We hope you enjoy this look back at the last 20 years and continue to join us in our game worlds as we look toward the next 20. We cant wait to show you more. inXile entertainment

[ 2022-11-07 20:45:04 CET ] [ Original post ]

Were celebrating inXiles 20th year as a game studio with a look back through our history; where we came from, obstacles along the way, and our studios future. But its the challenges that made us who we are, and were sharing never before heard stories about our history, our games (including some that were never released), and how becoming an Xbox Game Studio has changed our trajectory forever. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzAna_ovGfQ As youll learn in the documentary, its really our fans and those that helped support us directly through crowdfunding that kept the studio going, and wed like to once again thank anyone who backed a game, told a friend about us, or even just liked a post promoting a backer campaign. Even those small interactions absolutely made a difference in our lives, and we survived as a studio on the support of people who like to play the kinds of games we like making. We hope you enjoy this look back at the last 20 years and continue to join us in our game worlds as we look toward the next 20. We cant wait to show you more. inXile entertainment

[ 2022-11-07 20:28:36 CET ] [ Original post ]

Cult of the Holy Detonation

• Fixed an issue where the radio call to begin the expansion did not trigger if you had previously dismissed the Morning Star radio call. Morning Star will not be ignored.
• Fixed an issue where the computer in the Holy Detonation chamber could turn hostile to the player, making it so you couldn't use it. Although I bet it wasnt as hostile as my mother-in-law! Heyooo. Youre a great crowd, thank you so much.
• Fixed an issue in which having a Ranger removed from your squad via a science experiment allowed you to get your squad into an invalid state (5 CNPCs and 1 Ranger), blocking progression. Invalid state? You know who Id like to put into an invalid state? My mother-in-law! Heyooo! Thank you so much folks.
• Fixed an issue where auto-saving, while the crane was lowering onto the pressure plate in the Loading Docks, caused a progression blocker. Progression blocker? You know who has been blocking my progression? My mother-in-law! Youre terrific, youre terrific.
• The VR Headsets audio effects were persisting when selecting other characters, so we fixed that. It has also been moved to the Special section of the Crafting UI so its easier to find. VR? You know who lives in a Virtual Reality? My mother-in*cough**choke* *thump**dragging sounds**woodchipper whirring**grinding noises* Sorry about that. Back to the notes.
• The follower obtainable from the Security Level now runs faster during exploration, so they shouldnt fall far behind you.
• Fixed an issue that could cause the Bubble Shield status effect and VFX to persist after combat was over, even though the bubble itself was gone.
• Fixed an issue that made it look like Purging Grenades could hit interactive objects (such as explosive barrels and doors) when aiming them.
• [Controller] Made it easier to interact with tumor doors.

The Battle of Steeltown

• Players should now get pulled into a conversation after saving Steeltown from the gang raid, giving them a reward.
• Fixed several issues in the Steeltown Exterior where certain NPCs were being drawn into combat, causing combat to softlock.
• A few other small fixes that took a lot of effort but that no one will probably notice.

Balance

Cult of the Holy Detonation

• The Infused Diminuator weapon has had its stats improved: it now has higher Hit Chance, Mag Size, and AoE radius. It also applies stronger versions of its Shrinking and Embiggened effects, making it more effective for buffing and debuffing. We also fixed a number of minor bugs that could allow for these status effects from different sources (such as the Shrink Ray) to stack up on top of one another unintentionally. RIP in peace Sean Prime.
• The Detached Security Turret and its Infused variant have been improved in response to player feedback. Damage and Hit Chance have been increased slightly, while AP cost has been reduced. This makes it more efficient than most other HMGs in terms of AP cost vs. damage dealt, and much more effective as a turn-ending weapon.
• The Ragnashocks Thunderstruck ability now has a 1 turn cooldown.
• It was too easy to get clipped by the Evangelist's Bless effect while running past it in combat, so we reduced the size of its area slightly.
• The Optical Camo Shroud now boosts Sneaky Shit instead of Explosives as originally intended, in addition to its existing bonus to Detection Time. Important note: being invisible does not make you immune to frag mines.
• Gorilla Pheromones now provide +1 Kiss Ass. Unleash your inner primate, you damned, dirty ape!
• The Bomb Hopper Launcher no longer consumes all your AP when you use it.

Balance

Base Game

• The Foam Finger's Inspire ability has been changed. This is partly because it was too similar to Rally in behavior, as well as due to an exploit that let players bypass its cooldown. Instead of an area-of-effect around the user, it now lets you target individual characters to buff, but at a reduced AP cost and with no cooldown. The Hit Chance increase has also gone up from +5% to +10%.
• The Cardio Regulator, Vital Enhancer, and CRISPR Box have been adjusted. Due to the order in which character CON is calculated, the percentage-based CON bonuses werent providing as much benefit as the tooltips suggested. They now give flat max CON bonuses that are roughly equivalent to the amount of CON we intended them to provide. We also reduced the penalties on them to make them more appealing to use in general vs. other armor mods.

Gameplay

• Kills by your own deployable turrets and robots now grant XP!
• Made several improvements to mouse tooltips in combat. The game will now correctly display information about AP cost, whether the target is blocked or out of range, and other related feedback, when targeting abilities, or when using the Attack action directly from the quickbar.
• The Toasty perk should no longer set animals on fire when attempting to use Tame Predator on them during combat. It kind of made sense, but also did it?
• You can now double-click on the minimap to quickly move the camera to that spot.
• We fixed a bug with the Opportunist perk that wasnt causing it to provide the correct amount of bonus Strike Meter when making handgun attacks. Due to a calculation error it was providing much less than intended.
• Enemies who are Engulfed will now properly combo with Bleeding Strike.
• In response to fan feedback, characters who are using Ambush and gain AP will no longer have their Ambush canceled. This is now consistent with the other final actions (Defend and Prep).
• Fixed an issue that caused the Chain Ambush perk to cause combat to lock up under certain circumstances.
• Fixed an issue where the EMP Grenade would sometimes not detonate. In fixing this we revealed a previously unnoticed issue where it would only Glitch robots if your Nerd Stuff skill was high enough to hack them normally. This has been fixed to function as described in the items tooltip, with a 50/50 chance of Glitching robots caught in the blast.
• Fixed brawling animations so that they look better while wearing large brawling gloves, such as the Power Gauntlet.
• Fixed an issue where players using mouse & keyboard could not aim their Torrent Strike if it was activated via the Stormer perk.
• Deployables and squad followers are no longer hit by Friendly Fire when disabled in the options menu. Bear in mind that allied or otherwise non-hostile NPCs can still be hit. Please use caution when skinning that smoke wagon.
• The Discobot's Light Show status effect now works on robots, mutants, and synths correctly. Everybody happy!
• Fixed an issue that would cause the Prisoner to re-appear in the prison in Ranger HQ endgame even if he was released.
• Fixed a few random encounter maps where enemies were not starting combat when shot, like fish in a barrel.
• Fixed an issue in Old Survivalist Bunker where squads with low Perception could not pass through a specific alarmed door.
• Fixed an issue where the player couldnt hit the Manifest Destiny tank with circular area of effect attacks.
• Fixed a money-making exploit. Which one? Were not telling.
• Fixed an issue where a few players got their Big Trouble in Little Vegas quest into an un-progressable state, having arrested Brygo but not choosing which prison he should be sent to. Any games in this state should now be progressable.
• We fixed a crash that was caused by some aggressive driving on the part of the Scar Collectors crushing their allies through the map, their bodies hurtling endlessly and painfully through the infinite void which shall one day consume us all, the echoes of their screams swallowed by the inky blackness of the nothing. This has been resolved.
• Fixed an issue in which areas in Little Hell, near the pool room, were non-navigable.
• Sending Dierdre to La Perla now provides the intended reward. Which should be the immediate death of your squad and the game auto-uninstalling, but its probably ammo or something. Youre sick. Youre sick and you need help.
• Numerous fixes to minor and/or rare-occurrence issues.

User Interface

• In a recent patch, we changed how our font was bolded, which inadvertently made text more difficult to read at some resolutions. Its been changed to more closely match the original text.
• When hovering on a target to use either Hack Robot or Tame Predator, itll now show as Impossible if the requirement is over level 10.
• Targeting a Strike ability with the mouse will now show a different mouse cursor, making it easier to tell youre aiming the ability.
• Ability tooltips for deployables will now list Empty Space as the target rather than Allies and Enemies.
• Fixed an issue where character models and item requirements were not updating properly when cycling through your Rangers in the inventory.
• Cleaned up various UI and gameplay issues around repairing the Kodiak when it was wrecked.
• [Mac] Fixed some textures that could cause a crash while set to High or Ultra graphics settings.

Co-op

• Fixed an issue where the game would sometimes softlock when two players looted the same item at the exact same time.
• Improved the reliability of the hosts Multi-Kill Leadership bonus triggering in combat.
• Fixed an issue in which some guest players could not move through an important door in the Old Survivalist Bunker map. Why did things in this map suddenly break? Because making video games is very very fun.
• Fixed some host/guest sync issues for the final combat in Cheyenne Mountain.
• Numerous co-op fixes to minor and/or rare-occurrence issues. You know what I wish was a rare occurrence? My mother-in-law! Heyooooooo!

[ 2021-10-27 21:52:05 CET ] [ Original post ]

Grab that coffee and prepare to toboggan through a veritable gauntlet of post-apocalyptic patch notes! Hot on the heels of our second (and final) DLCs release, were serving up a plate of fixes and tweaks that are sure to please. Now, whats this 1.6.1 business were talking about?! What the hell happened to 1.5.4? Or 1.6.0 for that matter?! The simple explanation is that patch version numbers are meaningless and everything is meaningless and time is a flat circle. No matter. Drink more coffee. Maybe splash something extra in it. Cult of the Holy Detonation

• Cheyenne Entrance:
  • Updated a cryo landmine to let you avoid it more easily when interacting with a nearby chest. We agree, it was a cheap shot.
  • If they die, Boris and Natasha will no longer return from the grave when saving and reloading.
• Research Level:
  • Adjusted the pacing of the Particle Accelerator combat in the following ways:
    • Increased the armor of the Particle Cannons.
    • Reduced the max enemies that can be on the battlefield at one time while increasing the spawn rate of enemies to improve pacing.
    • The encounter will spawn fewer zealots and evangelists, in favor of spawning more initiates.
• Security Level:
  • Improvements have been made to Sister Strontium. Shell pull you in from a more reasonable distance, and the guard there will do a better job of detecting you if called.
  • Improvements have been made to Caul in the Security Level. Youll no longer get detected by enemies while stuck in his conversation.
• The Holy Detonation:
  • Resolved an issue where Cultists would occasionally spawn in spaces they couldnt move out of.
  • Improvements have been made to the final combat encounter; theres now less chance of being boxed in by enemies while navigating that area.
  • Weve increased the movement speed of the final boss to make that encounter a bit faster-paced.
• Nuke Grenades now properly deal explosive damage. They should be MUCH more effective now.
• The Uranium Sprayers special ability now only sprays on enemies, reducing the chances of awkward situations with your squadmates.
• Increased the volume of the Skin Flute is a patch note I never thought Id write but here we are.
• The crane cutscene in the Loading Dock encounter will now reveal the fog of war in a larger area, making it easier to see. When they said make a cutscene we didnt mean it to be a literal cut scene.
• Fixed a bug where a certain party follower would lose their special status effect buff if you reloaded the game. Let the projectile vomit flow!
• The smashable wall in the Security Level now makes a sound when destroyed. Your smashing experience will now be significantly more satisfying.
• The song Down in the Valley to Pray will now loop properly during the Research Level combat encounter.
• The song Power in the Blood now plays properly in the Power Storage Facility encounter.
• The fog of war on one of the random World Map Cultist encounters will now reveal the map properly.
• The Proteus will now play the correct death animation if killed in the Observation Level. If you thought the Proteus was gross before, woo buddy...
• The Surge Blaster is now not so literal. We fixed an exploit in the final battle where using that weapon to stun a certain spawner could cause all enemies to stop spawning.
• Theo Curie now appropriately reacts to players radiation state, and will no longer acknowledge you as glowing when your party doesnt have any stacks of Holy Radiation on them. Even brilliant scientists make mistakes, apparently.
• Fixed a couple of reactions from the stalkers who mock you throughout Cheyenne Mountain.
• [Controller] Fixed a bug where an invisible switch was accidentally accessible to a player while using a gamepad in Loading Docks.

The Battle of Steeltown

• We resolved an issue that could result in an infinite friendly turn during combat with the Ghost Gang at Steeltowns Exterior. Infinite friendly turn sounds like a beautiful state to be in, but its really not.

Co-op

• [Consoles] We resolved an issue that could cause a players game to freeze when the partner left the game unexpectedly.
• We resolved an issue that was preventing the guest player from creating the Flesh Prince in the Cheyenne Mountain secret lab. Sounds harmless enough.

[ 2021-10-12 17:13:00 CET ] [ Original post ]

[previewyoutube=gG0hinMCbBc;full][/previewyoutube] Wasteland 3: Cult of the Holy Detonation is now available for PC, Xbox, and PlayStation! Cult of the Holy Detonation brings together years of experience developing Wasteland 3, allowing us to create some of our best environments, creatures, weapons, and designs, and put them all into the subterranean, mutant-infested government stronghold of Cheyenne Mountain. Its a blast. The Desert Rangers will once again need to dive into a messy situation, sort out the major players and their motivations, and if necessary, take them to task. In true Wasteland fashion your decisions can have wide-reaching repercussions, and the decisions youve made up until this point can and will impact how the events within Cheyenne Mountain play out. This expansion also introduces objective-based combats, which are marquee events that require you to use your squad in new and unexpected ways. Its going to put even the most battle-hardened among you to the test. For an extra challenge, try it on Supreme Jerk, with difficult skill checks and permadeath turned on, while being level 16. We dare you. Were excited to see players jump into this final piece of the Ranger story in Colorado and are eager to hear what you think. Get Cult of the Holy Detonation a la carte or as part of the Expansion Pass.
Cult of the Holy Detonation is also available in the Colorado Collection bundle, which includes the base game, The Battle of Steeltown, and Colorado Survival Gear bonus items all for a single low priceand its on sale! The Colorado Collection is 30% off until October 19, making this an incredible time for new players to jump into post-apocalyptic Colorado. Be sure to tell at least five strangers about where they can purchase the Colorado Collection or you'll have seven years of bad luck. With the release of Cult of the Holy Detonation, the story of the Desert Rangers in Colorado has come to an end, and wed like to thank our original crowdfunding backers for making this possible, our Microsoft partners for elevating the Wasteland 3 experience to new heights, and our publisher Prime Matter for bringing these experiences to the masses. Whats next for inXile? Youll have to stay tuned. But in the meantime, there are some cultists to deal with. Well see you in the wasteland, Rangers.

[ 2021-10-05 17:00:30 CET ] [ Original post ]

Rangers, although you may have been washed in the blood of the lamb you havent yet prayed at the altar of the Holy Detonation but fear not! We aim to change that and have you fully prepared for the glowing transformation that is soon to come. Todays Patch 1.5.3 lays the behind-the-scenes groundwork that will make for a smooth update process when Cult of the Holy Detonation is released on October 5. Along with these discreet amendments, we have a few fixes and changes to the released content as well. As ever, thanks for continuing the good fight with us in Colorado. Good luck to you and your squad in the adventure to come. Something tells us youre gonna need it. Gameplay

• Assault Rifles have been beefed up to let you play out your deepest Rambo fantasies:
  • Double Tap will now crit on every bullet that hits its target, rather than just the first one. Heads will pop.
  • Puncturing Shot now does +100% damage on targets that are either Stunned or have Damaged Armor. Poke them holes!
  • Stormer now also applies to Assault Rifle weapons in addition to SMGs. Flank away!
• Fixed a bug that caused the Opportunist perk to add +5% to the Strike Meter for all weapons. It now only works for handguns as intended.
• Stun Resistance was giving us some resistance to working the way it should and now works as intended. A character with 100% Stun Resistance is now.... (you guessed it!) 100% resistant to being stunned!
• We resolved a lingering issue that could result in a discrepancy between the Patriarchs final dialog about Steeltowns resolution, and the games ending slides.
• The conversation with Quarex should now always trigger properly, allowing players to properly progress the mission Quarex's Hellacious Journey.
• Fishlips now correctly takes off to Denver if he is directed there, instead of saying hell go and then just oddly hang out at Union Station like a friend who says theyre leaving the party and then you see them again an hour later and youre like dude youre still here? He wont do that.
• World map merchants can now properly reappear even after players have encountered them before.
• Fixed a rounding error that could result in selling multiple items not yielding an equitable sum of video game currency the same as when said items are sold individually. Its basic video game economics and were proud to adhere to this global standard.

User Interface

• Improvements to the Inspection Window in the upper right corner of the game screen have been made. When using mouse & keyboard, it will now remember the last character you had hovered on, so that you can more easily view tooltips for their stats and status effects.
• The pedestal out front of Ranger HQ no longer has a name displayed before players decide to name the statue that... (spoiler) may go there. In your heart, you can name the pedestal whatever you want though, we dont mind. We named ours Hank. Hank Pedestal. Hes an amateur microbiologist.
• Holding the left stick or arrow key in the crafting screen will now also accelerate the quantities of items selected there.
• Saving manually will reset the timer showing the time since last save.

Console

• Under the hood improvements were made for Yuma Speedway & Ranger HQ to reduce the amount of memory these scenes required, making these areas more stable.
• We resolved an issue that was sometimes preventing players from changing new Rangers names

Co-op

• We resolved an issue that was resulting in guest players sometimes encountering doors with unresolvable lockpick skill checks.
• Player UI markers in cooperative mode have been adjusted to help more clearly identify which character is selected and which squad group the character is being controlled from.
• When Gonzalez radios players about the statue out front of Ranger HQ, both players will now receive that transmission.

[ 2021-09-30 21:52:37 CET ] [ Original post ]

In the rearview mirror of the Kodiak, you see the engines of Steeltown belching out their tar-black smoke far into the air above. Tinged with fire, it blankets an already charred sky with a reminder of the valorous work you accomplished there or the inglorious chaos you happened to set loose. Regardless of how you dealt with the towns conflict, you know that the road ahead is fraught with even greater challenges and dangers that have yet to reveal themselves. Just over the horizon looms Cheyenne Mountain, and before we set that adventure loose, your squad will need to be prepared. As noted in the State of the Frozen Union article, Patch 1.5.0 is primarily focused on improving the co-op experience, as well as allowing those at the endgame to experience the Steeltown and Cult of the Holy Detonation expansion content. Weve also taken a bright light to some of the underused quirks, perks, and backgrounds, balancing those with the intention of making them even more attractive options when youre creating and evolving squad members. Rounding all this off is a bevy of overall polish, fixes, and other general improvements that aim to please. A big thanks to our community for continuing this journey with us. We think youll agree that were no longer reluctantly crouched at the starting line and that this Kodiaks engine is now solidly pumping, perhaps even thumping, in time. A green light hath flashed for us all, and the flags doth go up. Our devs are churning and burning, and they yearn for the cup. What were saying is, with Patch 1.5.0 were going the distance. Were going for speed. Patch 1.5.0 'Going The Distance'

Highlights

• Players are now able to leave the endgame area and head back out into the world to experience The Battle of Steeltown and Cult of the Holy Detonation content as they damn well please. Additionally, players with one of the expansions (or both) will also have access to a specific squad management option available to them within the endgame area.
  • Note: These options are only available to games that have access to The Battle of Steeltown or Cult of the Holy Detonation expansions.
• Say goodbye to blindly crafting items and guessing at what they might be good forthe crafting interface now shows detailed information and stats for what will be crafted. We truly live in the future.
• We now display how long its been since you last saved your game next to the Quicksave menu button. Not displayed is whether youre save scumming to try to force a specific outcome. But we know. We all know.
• Do we smell bacon? Hot Hogs will no longer immediately charge you the same turn their fuses have been lit, allowing you to respond to them more effectively. They will also properly switch their hostility to Hostile/Red, making it easier to shoot them or tame them. Time to go H.A.M. on your enemies; which stands for Hogs Attacking Murderclowns.
• Numerous co-op quality of life improvements have been implemented in this patch, and are noted in detail below.

Co-op

• Peer-to-peer communication between co-op game clients has been optimized, which should result in fewer soft-locks and desyncs between players in cooperative mode.
  Note: As Wasteland 3 is a peer-to-peer game, the individual network configuration and performance of the host and client still play a huge role in starting and sustaining a stable connection.
• [GOG] Co-op sessions can now be started through the GOG Galaxy client.
• The connection strength indicator, which is displayed in the multiplayer lobby, will now more accurately display the signal strength between players. Strong signal, good. Weak signal, bad.
• Your co-op partners selected grid square is now displayed during combat, while browsing the squad inventory together, and while perusing merchant wares. Our goal here is to create a strong, psychic bond between co-op players. Soon you will become a single being of light, operating as an enhanced quantum emergent structure of consciousness. Dont fight it.
• You are now able to select your friends Rangers in the inventory screen to see what the hell they have equipped. No more having to ask what that weird thing with the green squiggles is on their head. Now youll just know, and of course, knowing is half the battle. The other half is probably telling them theyre playing wrong.
• When youre in a conversation with a skill check that you cannot pass without your partner present, the skill check will properly update as soon as your friend joins the conversation.
• Game-exit flow & messaging improvements have been implemented. Just keep reading.
  • When a player opts to go back to the main menu or quit to desktop while in a co-op session, theyre now met with a prompt informing them that the action will disconnect both players. Youll also be informed whether progress is able to be saved at that point or not.
  • If the session end is at a point where saving *is* allowed, progress will be auto-saved using the multiplayer auto-save slot. This save will be provided to both players. If saving at that point is *not* allowed, then no new save is created.
  • Conversely, the player who did not quit the game will now also see a prompt informing them why the game ended, in lieu of receiving a generic Game Disconnected error message. This messaging will likewise indicate whether progress was able to be auto-saved. Unfortunately, it will not include an evaluation of the health of the friendship, and whether the session was ended in anger or on amicable terms. You might want to shoot them a quick message like we cool?
• Resolved an issue where the host would be unable to use the Kodiak after the guest player revived them with a Nitro Spike.
• Resolved an issue where merchant and inventory selections could get stuck for both players.
• The "Join Shopping" prompt will now properly appear when a player hovers their mouse cursor over the merchant that the other player is trading with.
• Resolved an issue that could result in infinite enemy/friendly turns occurring during specific combat scenarios.
• Resolved an issue that could break the hosts camera view while they were using Precision Strike.
• Resolved an issue where the selection in the appearance customization would reset for one player if the other was also making changes to their appearance customization at the same time
• Both players will now be properly pulled into combat with the Refugee Smugglers outside of The Bizarre.
• Resolved an issue preventing players from sometimes joining conversations.
• Fade in/out for cutscenes should now for real only happen while viewing cutscenes.
• Resolved an issue where armor coloration could be incorrectly displayed after a saved game was loaded.
• Disabling the Difficult Skill Check option in the Multiplayer Lobby will properly disable it every time.
• Resolved an issue that could result in an infinite loading screen when players attempted to start a co-op session via Steam.
• [Consoles] Resolved an issue that could trigger a softlock during the transition to the Garden of the Gods map.
• [Controller] Resolved a display issue that could prevent players using a controller from being able to host a game session.
• [Steeltown] Resolved an issue where co-op players could kill Crow's hologram by bypassing the opening cutscene on the Factory Level. We use quotes liberally here since killing a hologram seems like a good thing to use quotes for.
• [Steeltown] Resolved an issue where players were sometimes unable to move their characters after Blues arrest.
• [Steeltown] Fixed a bug allowing a co-op guests character to travel through radiation without taking damage after a host used an injury kit on the affected squad member.
• [Steeltown] Resolved an issue where only one co-op squad could be healed by Doctor Breeler after the Ghost Garage encounter.
• [Steeltown] Resolved an issue after Steeltowns completion where only the guest was able to participate in the conversation with the Steeltown Refugee.

Balance

Dev Comment: "This post-Steeltown DLC period was a great opportunity for us to take stock and act on some of the community's feedback on character builds, as well as look at playtest data on which perks, quirks, abilities, and backgrounds were being used less than we'd like. Our hope for these changes is to inspire you to pick options you've never used before or see them in a new light, and generally beef up underpowered options. Note: In the last patch, a number of the text descriptions for these balance changes accidentally went in. With this patch, the actual functionality changes will be active.

• Quirks

  
  
  • Doomsday Prepper - Increased Status Effect Resistance to +33% (previously +25%), added a +15 CON Bonus.
  • Two-Pump-Chump - Removed the -15% Hit Chance Penalty.
  • Varangian Blood - Changed the -4AP penalty to -20% Evasion for 2 turns.
  • Lone Wolf - Increased Initiative to +30% (previously +20%), added +15% Healing Rate.
  • Circus Freak - Removed -10% Evasion because clowns suffer enough, but doubled the detection time down to -2.00 (previously -1.00) because bright neon colors do NOT make for good camouflage.

• Perks

  
  
  • Bloodsport (Melee Lvl 6 Perk) - Increased the number of debuff enemy types to Shocked, Bleeding, and Poisoned enemies (in addition to the original Stunned and Blind enemies).
  • Conductive Beams (Weird Science Lvl 9 Perk) - Increased the chance to activate Electrocute to +20% (previously +10%).
  • Pressure Cooker (Big Guns Lvl 7 Perk) - Pressure Cooker is now a lvl 6 Perk (previously lvl 7).
  • Close Call (Sneaky Shit Lvl 7 Perk) - Increased the malfunction chance to 66%, this perk affects all squad members.
  • Breakfast Bandit (Toaster Repair Lvl 5 Perk) - Added the description of the Toast healing item to the perk; Toast is delicious!
  • Shrug It Off (Melee Combat Lvl 10 Perk) - Increased Armor gained for every adjacent enemy to +5 (previously +2 Armor), added +10% Status Effect Resistance for every adjacent enemy.
  • Minesweeper (Explosives Lvl 4 Perk) - Added +1 Perception bonus.
  • Fortify (Mechanics Lvl 7 Perk) - Increased the amount of armor gained to +7 for friendly vehicles, robots, and deployables (previously +5 Armor).
  • Toasty (Toaster Repair Lvl 10 Perk) - Your first attack every turn will inflict Burning (previously the first attack after killing an enemy inflicted Burning).
  • Tender Loving Care (Armor Mod Lvl 10 Perk) - Increased Armor gained to all squad members to +8 Armor (previously +5 Armor).
  • Reinforced Plating (Mechanics Lvl 5 Perk) - Increased the amount of CON gained to +33% on repaired Vehicles and Robots (previously +25% CON).

• Backgrounds

  
  
  • Grease Monkey - Increased Damage to Robots and Vehicles to +15% (previously +10%).
  • Paladin - Increased Crit Resistance to +15% (previously +10%).
  • Stoner - Increased Status Effect Resistance to +15% (previously +10%).

Gameplay

• Rangers who may leave your squad at the end of the game will now drop their loot for you to pick up.
  • Note, dropped gear that was previously modded will drop as un-modded. This is an issue that our Dev team is aware of.
• Resolved an issue that was allowing certain abilities such as Rally and Demoralize to apply status effects from an active weapon.
• Abilities that dealt a percentage of your equipped weapon's damage should now deal the correct amount of damage again.
• Loading an autosave that was made after starting a fight with a Scorpitron on the world map will no longer make the encounter disappear.
• Deployables that are spawned far from combat will now be destroyed after combat ends, resolving an issue where a combat encounter could seem to have no way to end it.
• We resolved an issue that allowed players to duplicate scope mods. We see you. Through non-duped scope mods.
• Those damned elves will no longer softlock the game if theyre freed during the Elf on a Shelf quest. You know what though? Dont free them. Blow them up. They cause too many problems.
• Weve hacked the hacked robots so that they will no longer be targeted by a players ambushes.
• Combat speed penalties for weapons you lacked the skill to wield, are now correctly applied to those weapons.
• Benjie Braddock now appropriately rewards the player, if helped.
• As intended, it is now possible to use the Suture and Injury Kits to save Georgia Overdrive or Shotgun.
• We fixed a specific tripmine that was not able to be disarmed in Yuma County Speedway. Trippy Tripmine, Trips are for kids.
• Resolved an issue where the Patriarch would incorrectly state that Cordite had been freed even if you did not free Cordite.
• Strength will now correctly apply a range bonus to all throwable items (including snowballs).
• Resolved issues with the components required to craft Extended Mag and Rubber Grip mods, allowing them to now be crafted correctly.
• Fixed some edge cases that could cause experience points to not be granted to the squad for every enemy death in the combat, such as kills by friendly units or status effects applied by the enemy.
• The Sonic Emitter can now be used out of combat so you can emit sonics (???) whenever you want.
• Resolved an issue that was resulting in new characters having their starting weapon field marked as complete during character creation, before their weapon was selected.
• [Consoles] Resolved an issue that was preventing players from sometimes creating custom Rangers at the start of a new game.
• [Controller] Resolved an issue that allowed players to sometimes attack multiple times in one action by repeatedly pressing the attack button. By the way, remember the NES Max controller with that sweet turbo button? Stubins Farm remembers.
• [Controller] Resolved an issue that was preventing players from being able to select status effects in the inventory.
• [Steeltown] We resolved the issue where DI would sometimes go missing and would not rejoin the player's squad as a companion. The faint scent of cheese curds may though be detected on her breath...
• [Steeltown] We replaced a Guard-Bot to its appropriate station for certain Markham outcomes.
• [Steeltown] There is now additional dialog with Serena Ash when a player speaks with Luna Moon first.
• [Steeltown] DIs conversation is now correctly triggered when Markham asks about the Synaptic Degausser.

UI & Controls

• Squad Management Screen updates!
  • The Squad Management screen will now display skulls atop incapacitated squad member portraits, and EKG lines on portraits of Rangers that are downed.
  • Theres now an alert reminder within the management screen that the squad can only be modified back at Ranger HQ.
  • The number of skill points each new recruit has available is now displayed beneath their portrait within the squad management catalog at Ranger HQ.
• The Mission Log now defaults to open, making the details displayed there quicker and easier to read.
• We now warn you when youre about to leave a World Map merchant interface. Once its closed, its closed for good, so we want to be upfront with you about that.
• The game will now automatically close the menu after saving your game, letting you get back to the action quicker.
• When targeting robots and animals, the user interface will now indicate whether you meet the requirement or not for hacking and taming. Not indicated is whether the robot or animal will fill the void left by the retirement of the Mexican Pizza.
• Default stack sizes are now smarter when shopping.
  • When selling stack size defaults to 100% of the stack.
  • When buying stack size defaults to 50% of the stack and/or does not exceed what you can afford.
• The interface now displays Hit Chance when youre aiming your weapons at non-hostile NPCs.
• Players can now launch brightness calibration again from within the options menu.
• The inspection panel interface now lists the level of the enemies youre hovering over.
• We improved messaging within the UI when youre attempting to equip an item that you dont meet the requirements for. Its the visual equivalent of a slide whistle making a sad beeooooo sound.
• The modding screen will now display a label indicating your highest-skilled character.
• Fixed some localization errors for various languages.
• Resolved an issue that was causing quick slot items to disappear after players transitioned across maps or loaded a saved game.
• [Controller] The AP bar now highlights a preview of spent action points during the radial menu selection; this matches the existing mouse and keyboard behavior.
• [Controller] As you hold the joystick when selecting a stack size within an inventory window, the selection rate will accelerate to make it less tedious.
• [Controller] The gamepad selection cursor now sticks to patrolling enemies.

Audio

• Everyone can once again have fun tonight, as weve made sure to return the song Everybody Have Fun Tonight to the Cannibal Jamboree. We suspect the elves from Santas Village had something to do with its absence. BLOW. THEM. UP.
• Resolved an issue that was resulting in looped sound effects when the cloning sequence dialog was skipped. Another clear example of why cloning people is an affront to the natural order of things.

[ 2021-08-31 21:58:17 CET ] [ Original post ]

Wasteland 3: Cult of the Holy Detonation releases October 5 on PC, Xbox, and PlayStation. Cult of the Holy Detonation is the second and final narrative expansion to the award-winning tactical RPG from inXile entertainment.
Deep within the Cheyenne Mountain military complex, mutant cults worship an ancient deity they call the Holy Detonationa nuclear explosion held in stasis. Whether god, science experiment, or accidental miracle, the Detonation's energy could power Colorado Springs for hundreds of years, or level it in an instant. The warring cults have differing opinions on who should be allowed to honor their god, and youre going to have to muscle your way to the altar. Its one last mission for the Rangers in Colorado, and the outcome is certain to be explosiveone way or the other. [previewyoutube=4c4gM37wQO0;full][/previewyoutube] Cult of the Holy Detonation expands the Wasteland 3 experience with entry into the Cheyenne Mountain complex, crammed with new characters, enemies, challenging combat encounters, and powerful new weapons and armor. Your squad of Rangers will be tested like never before in objective-based encounters that put a creative spin on the already deeply tactical turn-based combat. As they face overwhelming odds, the Rangers will need to shut down reactors, clear ventilation systems, and engage defensive countermeasures to stem an unending tide of dangerous mutants and machines within the dilapidated military bunker.
Cult of the Holy Detonation is the second and final expansion to Wasteland 3 and will be available for $6.99, or as a part of the Wasteland 3 Colorado Collection for $59.99, which includes Wasteland 3, The Battle of Steeltown, Cult of the Holy Detonation, and Colorado Survival Gear. Stay tuned here and follow us on Twitter and Facebook as we preview Cult of the Holy Detonation in the weeks ahead.

[ 2021-08-24 18:05:59 CET ] [ Original post ]

Rangers! Hotfix (1.4.6) is now live for Windows 10, Mac, and Linux. For information about our forthcoming Patch 1.5.0, please check our recent State of the Frozen Union article. Hotfix 1.4.6

• [Controller] Resolved the stuck dialog bug that was occurring at Marshal Lupinski in Little Vegas, and a similar issue also occurring at the Computation Engine, within Steeltown.

[ 2021-08-04 21:58:29 CET ] [ Original post ]

Rangers, grab your flask and your Hobo Dog, and set yourselves around the irradiated campfire. So far this year weve covered a lot of ground, but weve still got a ways to go before this leg of the adventure is done. As a brief recap of 2021 to date, we opened the gates to the Patriarchs production factories at Steeltown, leveled up the game with crafting and an animal companion kennel, shared a slew of behind-the-scenes videos, dropped the soundtrack on Spotify, launched our initial merch offering, and even set our mouths on fire with some hot wings, just for you. But were not quite done yet. Before the summer is out, well be announcing our second and final DLC for Wasteland 3, and were excited to share those details soon. First, we have some important updates to detail.

Hotfix 1.4.6 & Patch 1.5.0

With a recent update a particularly sticky dialog issue was introduced, where players are unable to select any dialog options at key points in Little Vegas and Steeltown. Thanks to some eagle-eyed redditors, a workaround involving having Kwon and/or Lucia hang back at HQ during those conversations reportedly helped in those situations. All the same, weve got the fix for these which will be hitting the various platforms as soon as next week. After 1.4.6, a larger forthcoming update (Patch 1.5.0) will be taking square aim at continuing to improve and refine the co-op experience in Wasteland 3. We know that for many of you co-op is your preferred way to deal with dispensing justice and we want to deliver the experience youre looking for. Were aware that since launch theres been a number of issues reported with co-op, so well be doing our best here to knock as many of these out as we can with a single blow. Were expecting 1.5.0 to be ready in a few weeks.

Improving Co-op

One of the primary challenges with co-op in our game is that we're peer-to-peer, and that puts all the strain of communicating the game state on the players machines and network connection, rather than on a server. Weve found troubleshooting firewalls, routers, and host network resolves a decent amount of these. As we noted above, there are definitely still co-op bugs well be addressing in Patch 1.5.0 to reduce interactivity and display issues (the full change list will be available in the final patch notes), but we're also looking at adding some ways to help players better identify when their network connection could be contributing to the problems. In cases where theres a disconnection, well be generating an autosave for both players to ensure you can jump back in right where you left off. And if one player decides to quit, well have better messaging so youll know what happened, rather than just see a generic disconnection error. Well also be making the connection strength indicator in the lobby more reliable, which will show if a co-op session may be unreliable due to either players networks.

Co-op Quality of Life Features

Focusing our energy on fixing co-op bugs and helping players diagnose connection issues should go a long way to improving the co-op experience, but we're also looking to add quality-of-life features. When 1.5.0 drops, youll be able to see what your co-op partner is hovering over/selecting in combat, in the inventory, and when perusing merchant wares. Communication is key in co-op, but this helps take some of the guesswork out of what the other player is thinking. Additionally, while checking the inventory, youll be able to see the gear details of your partners squad members. With 1.5.0, conversations with skill checks will also automatically update the moment your friend joins the conversation, allowing them to sweet talk you out of whatever sticky situation you got yourself into when you ran off solo.

End Game DLC Rewind

Patch 1.5.0 isnt entirely focused on co-op; we have a bunch of other fixes and quality of life improvements, not the least of which is allowing players to access the DLC even after theyve passed the point of no return. We were caught a bit off guard with how many of you only keep a single save file, which meant that when you went to go play Steeltown your only option was to replay the game from the start. Now, we think its absolutely worth a replay (or five) but we understand not everyone is looking to take on the full burden of Colorados problems again. Were fixing that in 1.5.0 by letting those of you past the endgame point of no return to go back to the world map, manage your squad (including replacing lost Rangers), and restock before attempting the DLC content.

Other Cool Stuff

The patch is a bigun, with fixes and improvements across the board. Well have the full details in the patch notes (when the patch goes live), of course. In the meantime, if you have co-op bugs youve never reported or it just seems we must not know about, please sound off on the official forums as wed like to make sure were getting as much into this future update as possible. Thanks for continuing this journey with us! We look forward to getting 1.5.0 in your hands and blowing your minds with the second and final DLC. - Wasteland 3 Team

[ 2021-07-29 20:03:15 CET ] [ Original post ]

Rangers! Hotfix (1.4.5) is now live for Windows 10 and Linux. This is a small hotfix to address stability issues introduced with our last patch. The Mac hotfix is still in-progress, and we expect it to release in about a week. Heads up, we're working on another hotfix to launch as soon as possible after 1.4.5 to address some additional issues on PlayStation. We're also working on a much larger patch, which is expected about a month out from the time of this post. Thanks all for continuing to report issues to us in our bug report forums.

• Resolved a crash that could appear in multiple places, but most notably during the end-game fight at Ranger HQ.
• PlayStation 4 performance and stability improvements.

[ 2021-07-16 22:19:39 CET ] [ Original post ]

Scotchmo is great, but were certain his breath isnt. And just like the breath mint we imagine he chews from time to time, this update is a deceptively small but potent addition. Packing a minty-fresh wallop thats sure to air out the place like wintergreen on the palette of a curmudgeonly alcoholic with a closet full of Snake Squeezins. Please note, Scotchmos Breath Mints notes are separated into changes that impact Steeltown specifically, and those that impact base game content or systems that span the entire game.

The Battle of Steeltown

Balance

• The special Steeltown armor is now more affordable, and it drops more often. We want players to get into the new armor more easily, as its designed to withstand Steeltowns elemental-heavy weapons. Also it looks cool.
• Non-lethal playthroughs were more challenging than intended. Weve made a number of changes to improve reliability of Disruption weapons and slightly boost their effectiveness in response to player feedback.
  • Disruption Baton hit chance increased to 85%.
  • Disruption Pulsers mag size increased to 10 and its hit chance to 80%.
  • Disruption Web Launchers hit chance increased to 95%.
  • Disruption Traps AP cost reduced to 4.
  • Heavy Disruption Blaster had its AP cost reduced to 5 but its reload cost increased to 4.
  • Disruption Sniper AP cost reduced to 6.
• Rioter punch damage reduced by 50% and powerfist impact damage increased by 10%.
• Mechanic sniper damage bonus reduced by 10%.
• Foundry Worker and Exo-Tech basic attack damage reduced by 50%. Their ability damage was unchanged.
• Maintenance Worker melee damage reduced by 10%.
• Construction Worker hit chance reduced by 10%.

Gameplay

• The Patriarch now properly acknowledges all possible Steeltown outcomes, which is good because dealing with the Patriarch is not an insignificant part of the game.
• Addressed an issue where loading a save during a cutscene could cause the game to display the cutscene bars for the remainder of that session. Imagine just waiting for that loooong cutscene to end. Somethings going to happen at any moment Nope.
• Skipping the conversation with the Computation Engine could cause some weird bugs. Were they bugs though or did the Computation Engine just not appreciate being skipped?
• Resolved a softlock that could occur if a player (somehow) initiated combat with Guard-Bots after opening the Steeltown gate but before the Ghost Gang arrival.
• Resolved an issue where the Gift of the Magi mission was not being failed when a player sided with Crow to eliminate Markham.
• Blue now takes the correct amount of money during the Degausser negotiation.
• Resolved an issue where squad members would pop in and out of cover like deranged jack-in-the-boxes.
• Players will now no longer lose access to the Steeltown merchants after the raid, which is nice.
• All NPCs on the Admin Level will now properly react to Crow and Blue being in charge, *cough* ...if thats at all how things play out for you. Not saying they need to, you do you.
• Hacked Guard-Bots in the Steeltown Spire will no longer block the path to the witches. I mean switches! lol I cant believe I did that. Im so random! xoxo
• Assistance by Steeltowns Computation Engine was extremely infrequent. We made it less infrequent by a specific percentage which you can never know.
• Resolved an issue in the Steeltown Spire where the player was moved to a different spot than indicated when trying to interact with the Bot-Lift switch.
• Bot-Lifts wont draw quite as much aggro from followers and animal companions as they did before. Promise.
• Dr. Breeler should no longer go missing after the raid. Strong emphasis on should. Hes a free spirit.
• Luis at Steeltowns gates will no longer repeat the same conversation after the Factorys situation has been resolved.
• Bro, the Helping Hand bonus will like totally no longer activate before Handcraft offers help. It was pretty sketch but we fixed it up so you can get back to shredding the gnar.
• Resolved a softlock that could occur in the Steeltown Spire during cutscenes there.
• Resolved an issue which was preventing combat from ending when more than one robot was hacked on the player's side before the last enemy was killed.
• Destroying the generator at the Scrapyard bridge will no longer break the Ghost Gang behavior during combat.
• [PS4] Resolved some visual issues with the Power Loader attacks.
• [Xbox] Resolved an issue that could cause framerate to drop while players engaged in the first combat with the Ghost Gang.

Multiplayer

• Resolved an issue where a co-op player would not get pulled into the conversation with Markham and Crow if they were too far from the scene. Yoink!
• Addressed an issue that was resulting in the Kodiaks parked location being desynchronized between the players. Alas, the philosophical debate about where Schrdinger's Kodiak is has finally been resolved.
• Resolved an issue where only the guest could participate in the radio call from the Steeltown Refugee after the area was completed and the party was leaving Steeltown.
• Resolved an issue where a softlock could occur when a guest spoke with Dr. Breeler as the session host spoke to Luis during the Flushed mission.
• Resolved an issue where Beals would appear hostile for the guest, after the party defeated the Ghost Gang using non-lethal weapons.
• Resolved an issue which was preventing the guest player from being pulled into the final conversation with the Computation Engine. Double-yoink.

UI & Display

• Resolved a strange visual issue that was going on with Blues hair.
• Assembling the warbot now has all the sparks and flashing lights warranted by the creation of a mobile death-machine.
• The Power Loader melee smash now gibs and ragdolls bodies so you can feel the full effect of really screwing up that fight.
• While hovering on the switch to shut down the Bot-Lift in the Steeltown Spire, the movement preview will no longer show a random nearby space.

Audio

• Added the Disruption Turbines sound effects which were missing for its ambient, idle, and overloading states. What good is a turbine if it doesnt go vrmmmvrmm, chunkachunk, and BRRZZZRRRZZ?
• The all-important THUD! sound has been added for when a player falls off the treadmill within the Administration level.
• Pressing the big, red, candy-like button to end the simulation in the Steeltown Spire now has proper sound effects.

Misc

• You can stop holding it, the outhouse is now usable.
• Weve tweaked some things under the hood during the Steeltown final battle so that framerate doesnt tank.
• [Linux] Resolved an issue that could cause the game to crash if the camera was rotated while the screen was focused on the Steeltown gates.

Base Game

Balance

• Weve employed a general fix for crit damage calculations, which should help with one-shot crits from enemies. Dont worry, you wont have to do the calculations, the game will do that for you. I mean, you could on paper, but you dont have to.
  • We found that enemies were calculating a higher crit damage value than intended. Weve corrected the calculation. Player crit damage is unchanged.

Gameplay

• Resolved an issue where hit chance previews would not display for enemies who weren't in your line of sight. Sneaky bastards thought they were just gonna go under the radar.
• We addressed the freak of nature situation that was happening in Ironclads makeshift jail area where combat could become bugged-out to the extreme, preventing players from proceeding with the combat there.
• The reward from the "Buzzkill" quest can no longer be acquired infinitely if Marshall Kwon is present in the squad.
• Resolved an issue which was preventing Benjie Braddock from giving the ventilation system password to the player after hes been assisted.
• Resolved an issue which would sometimes prevent players from being able to click on the Kodiak to repair it during combat.
• Resolved a softlock that could occur after interacting with computers in Aspen when their connected turrets had been destroyed.
• [Xbox] Weve employed stability fixes for a cutscene with Angela Deth at Hoon Homestead.
• [Steam] Resolved an issue where enemies would not attack the party when concurrent movement had been disabled.

UI & Display

• Resolved an issue where quickslot items could disappear after map transitions or save loads.
• Resolved an issue that could prevent a player from accessing their characters abilities while that character was aiming.
• Resolved an issue where dialog barks would linger after combat ended. Do you have to, do you have to let it linger? Good luck not singing that for the rest of the day now.
• The highlight all button will now no longer make non-interactive corpses show an outline because who needs that nonsense?
• [Microsoft Store] Weve attempted to fix an issue introduced with 1.4.0 that was causing the game to launch with the brightness defaulted to the lowest setting. If you continue to encounter this please report it through the inXile support site.
• [Controller] Resolved an issue that could prevent a player from selecting status effects in the inventory with a controller.

[ 2021-06-29 15:52:43 CET ] [ Original post ]

Once every generation an idea comes about that's so original, so unique, that it changes the course of history and the human race... forever. Behold! Wasteland Wings. An unholy conjoinment of spicy food eating and down-to-brass-tacks interviewsmanship. Community Manager Matt Amy (@mattonomicon) invited developers from our Tustin and NOLA offices to subject themselves to mouth-searing pain while attempting to answer questions about Wasteland 3. Certainly nothing could go wrong. [previewyoutube=z7ZsG_SF0II;full][/previewyoutube] Thanks for watching and please let us know what you thought by leaving a comment on the YouTube video or hitting us up on Twitter @inXile.

[ 2021-06-23 17:11:00 CET ] [ Original post ]

[previewyoutube=mwzkuVM7Kwc;full][/previewyoutube] The Battle of Steeltown is OUT NOW for Windows 10, Mac, and Linux! If you'd like to grab Steeltown AND our next (unannounced) expansion at the same time for a slight discount, you'll want to be sure to grab the Wasteland 3 Expansion Pass. For the latest updates be sure to follow us at @Wasteland on Twitter, join Ranger HQ on Facebook, jump into the official inXile forums, and find player-run communities talking about Wasteland 3 and The Battle of Steeltown on Reddit, Steam, and Discord. If you need technical support be sure to visit support.inxile-entertainment.com.

[ 2021-06-03 15:59:30 CET ] [ Original post ]

Welcome to the proverbial jungle, baby. We heard you loud and clear and we know what you want. You want to rock and roll all night and part of every day. You want us to crank it up to 11 as you compose your symphonies of destruction during a season in the abyss. In case you didn't get the memo, the crazy train has left the station and is roaring towards the release of Wasteland 3's first expansion on June 3. We're hungry as all hell for more Wasteland 3, and we got a nasty appetite for construction. As noted in our recent 1.4.0 feature preview articles, the headliners of this concertapalooza are crafting and the animal companion kennel updates. They're followed by a lineup of other headbangin' callouts noted below that are sure to make you not-so-quietly riot from your chairs and sofas. So come on, feel the noise.

Highlights

New Feature: Crafting

• Players are now able to craft mods, weapons, gear, and mystery items from the crafting menu accessible from the inventory screen. Time to put that scrap to work.
• Crafting recipes can be learned by leveling up some skills, buying them from vendors, searching containers, and discovering mystery crafting recipe ingredients.
• More info available here.

New Feature: Animal Companion Kennel & Improved UI

• A new kennel located just outside Ranger HQ is now available. Animals dismissed in the field or those who were following a Ranger who died will return automatically to the kennel, and from there they can optionally be dismissed back into the wild. You wouldnt do that though because youre not a heartless jerk.
• The animal companion type limit has been removed, allowing squads to have multiples of the same type of animal in the squad (1 animal per Ranger still, of course). Thats right, you can now have a whole squad of pissed-off cats scratching cannibal clowns.
• Character portraits now display icons for animal companions. Mousing over (or selecting) the animal icon will display a tooltip with that companions current stats.
• More info available here.

New Customization Options

• 12 new chest pieces are now available when creating or customizing your character, with some job-themed options like medic and explosives expert. Finally, what youve always wanted, to have a work uniform in-game too.

• Polly the Parrot is 100% more inappropriate and packs a walloping Demoralize ability. Do not, for the love of all that is holy, play Pollys dialog at high volume in proximity to anyone of high moral character.

Gameplay

• Added new safeguards to ensure followers like Provost, Party Pal, clones, etc. wont disappear if the squad member theyre following dies, gets swapped out, or when swapping them to the other player in co-op.
• In certain situations where enemies surrender to the player, combat should no longer be re-triggered due to multi-shot attacks or damage over time status effects.
• With Permanent Death mode on, the endgame sequence will now give a proper game over screen if your only remaining characters leave the squad during certain story outcomes.
• The Tender Loving Care perk will now properly be removed when the character owning the perk is removed from the squad.
• Fixed a bug where if a character had two equipped weapons granting the same ability (such as alternate fire modes), the ability would not be usable.
• Fixed a bug that would cause Downed or Incapacitated player characters to disappear after leaving Union Station, past interacting with Morningstar.
• Resolved an issue where the downed state timer would advance too quickly if that squadmate had already been revived during that combat.
• Player characters who are Downed on the World Map will be automatically revived when returning to Ranger HQ so you dont have to manually bring them back.
• Resolved various collision issues with invisible walls in the Bunker near Aspen.
• Fixed an issue for the Jackhammer shotgun with Extended Choke mods that would mess with the targeting cone in aim mode. You might think wed make a joke here about jackhammer and extended choke, but youre wrong. And sick.
• Yellow Snowballs can now correctly apply the Black Thaw STD, making the Back in the Sack achievement more achievable. Youre welcome?
• Lucky Crit and Lucky Mega Crit prompts are now properly followed by critical hits as intended. Lucky you.

Balance

• Turning on Difficult Skill Checks was incorrectly providing bonus XP when passing a skill check, making progression and game difficulty much easier as a result. The intention of Difficult Skill Checks is to add difficulty and not to make game progression easier.
• Destroyed loot boxes can no longer be re-looted after saving and then loading the game. I guess you could say trying to re-loot is moot.

UI & Controls

• The squads order will now be retained correctly when transitioning between areas or loading a saved game. Glory, glory hallelujah!
• Retraining a character will now show a confirmation animation on their character portrait inside the Mange Squad screen.
• Weapons and armor now list what mods they have installed in their description text. Luckily they wont list that youre still not done with your taxes.
• The save/load menus now display information to show if you have Difficult Skill Checks or Permanent Death mode enabled for a given save file.
• Conversations now show a Click to continue prompt when using mouse and keyboard, which helps show which ones wont automatically progress.
• We fixed an issue where Modify Armor would sometimes be displayed as Modify Weapon when armor pieces were right-clicked in the inventory.
• Animal Whisperer's status effects will now no longer disappear after first meeting with [REDACTED PERSON OF IMPORTANCE].
• Visual feedback improvement made for when Abilities are activated on the Quickbar.
• Item icon sizes should now be consistent between inventory and merchant windows.
• Floating text when Crits are resisted via Crit Resistance has now been added. How much crit would a crit resistance resist if a crit resistance could resist crit?
• The Radio is now properly hidden during vendor encounters on the World Map.
• Fixed an issue in the merchant screen where the Modify Weapon/Armor option could sometimes appear on items.
• Made a bunch of additional small UI tweaks that were sure the UI designers dont appreciate us summarizing in this very vague patch note.
• [Controller] Explosive barrels are now included in both the hostile targeting group and the object targeting group when in Targeting Mode, making it easier to target them on a controller.
• [Controller] While playing with a controller, there is now a button mapping to quickly open the Map Screen so you can get a birds-eye view more quickly.

Art & Audio

• Flamethrowers will no longer lose their sound and visual effect when primary and secondary weapons are swap-toggled. Swap-toggle is a thing we just came up with we think.
• Skipping the cloning sequence dialogue in Ranger HQ no longer causes a sound effect loop.
• There was this weird thing going on where the more items a container had, the louder the sound effects were when you did things with those items. That was weird, so we fixed it. Sometimes weird is good, but this wasnt one of those times.

Misc

• Taming a Glow Hopper in the Old Survivalist Bunker will no longer cause a crash. I guess you could say, that Glow Hopper is no longer a Show Stopper.
• We had a talk with the Provost and hes now much more confident about where he wants to be and when he wants to be there. Hes still odd, but by intention.
• Fixed an issue when Irv remained in Downtown Colorado Springs even after being arrested during the Dont You Be My Neighbor mission. No, that wasnt another one of his clones roaming free. Or was it? (No, it wasnt.)
• Fixed a softlock that could occur after an enemy was attacked with a bladed weapon two times in a row. Stabby stabby.
• Players are no longer able to block the elves from leaving the place where the elves are and they'll no longer be trapped in the cutscene. I guess you could say, elves have left the building.
• [Microsoft Store] We resolved an issue for Microsoft Store players who could encounter a crash when a host tried to use the "Invite Friend" button in the Direct Connection lobby.

[ 2021-05-27 15:09:34 CET ] [ Original post ]

The hype train continues as we roll into Patch 1.4.0 station before continuing on to Steeltown. Is that our final stop? No, it wont be, but its a nice place and we recommend getting out and stretching your legs. In addition to the Crafting system weve already outlined coming in this next (free) update, we have some oft-requested features to make managing your animal companion coterie a real cinch.

Animal Companion Kennel

Chief among the new animal companion-focused changes hitting in Patch 1.4.0 is the Animal Companion Kennel. This is a safe, warm, and nurturing environment that all of your furry and spiky friends can hang out when youre not using them to murder clown gangs or robots. Right now, animal companions dont hang around if you dismiss them, but with the Kennel theyll have a home they automatically return to. That lets you build up a cadre of canines and cats, and pick and choose as you need or just collect em all!
Not only do your furry friends return to the Kennel when you dismiss them, but if their owner leaves the squad (or permanently dies in battle) their animal companion will automatically return to the Kennel next time you zone to a different level. Of course, thats assuming they survive the combat themselves.
If youre not particularly fond of a companion, you can release them back into the wild from the Kennel too, but we honestly dont know why youd ever do that. They need you and its cold out there. One last note, any animal companions that have run away before this update wont automagically reappear in the Kenneltheyll have to be tamed again, where possible.

Companion Type Limit Gone!

Whats with those pesky companion type limits, anyway? One wolf, one pig ONE cat!? You need at least three cats. Rules be damned, were opening the floodgates of fur and horns! With Patch 1.4.0, youll be able to bring along whatever animal companions you damn well please.

Animal Portrait & UI Improvements

Were also upgrading our character portrait system to show what pet a specific Ranger has with them, and a health bar so you can keep tabs on their condition. This should greatly help in keeping track during combat.
You can also mouse over the pet icon to get a tooltip of current stats.

Polly Want a Crack-their Skulls Open?

Rounding out the list of animal-related changes, we let the shackles off the writing team (who we definitely dont really keep shackled so please dont look into it) and had them seriously upgrade the smack-talk of our favorite foulmouthed featherbrain. Polly now has a brand-new Demoralize ability in combat, replete with many, many blasphemy-laden insults hell lob your enemies way. Its as fun as it soundsheres just a taste of the full repertoire. Warning: Not Safe for well pretty much anyone, anywhere. To view the Polly video, you'll need to watch it over on our website: https://www.inxile-entertainment.com/post/patch-1-4-0-animal-companion-kennel

Follower Fixes

Last, but not least, weve put the kibosh on some annoying bugs that would sometimes cause non-animal followers (Provost, Party Pal, etc.) to vanish during gameplay. They can still get their brains splattered or bolts smashed if youre not careful, but there should be less chance of them getting lost during your post-apocalyptic adventure. Oh, and incase it wasnt clear, non-animal companions are not animals and arent stored in the kennel. We hope youre excited for Patch 1.4.0 as we close in on its release in the next couple weeks. If you havent yet, be sure to check out the Crafting article weve published, and keep an eye out for more Patch 1.4.0 and The Battle of Steeltown feature previews as we roll toward launch.

[ 2021-04-23 14:42:51 CET ] [ Original post ]

The world in which the Rangers exist is a perilous environment filled with challenge at every turn, where desperation and despair wait just ahead and trail close behind. Survivors in this world do not get by with sheer luck or by accident. They maintain a will to survive that has been tempered for generations in this radioactive wasteland where life was meant to die. Out here, the pieces of this broken world are your keys to rebuilding anew . . . or should at least prove helpful in prolonging your own grisly demise for another day.

CRAFTING THE APOCALYPSE

This years updates so far have included Permadeath, Difficult Skill Checks, new difficulty modes, new cosmetic options, and a host of quality-of-life changes and game improvementsbut were not stopping there. With Patch 1.4.0 releasing in the next few weeks, your Rangers will soon be able to finally put much more of what they find across frozen Colorado to new use, and forge items that are oftentimes helpful, sometimes exotic, and occasionally, just batshit insane. Wasteland 3s Crafting system will introduce exciting new weapons and high-level mods for squads to experiment with. This is going to be especially beneficial for those of you coming back to play the expansions weve got coming. This is a true-to-Wasteland system, with new gear that celebrates the post-apoc theme, and packs other surprises thatll keep you guessing. Along with all that new hotness, theres also the obvious convenience of making your squads more self-sufficient in the field, as theyll be able to make their own ammo and medical supplies on the run. Overall, this system is going to give new purpose to a lot of the vendor Junk you find in the world, allowing you to grind it all up and spit it all back out as a bunch of shiny new items.
The new craftable W.A.S.P. Gun is every bit as horrific as you imagine it to be.

RECIPES FOR DESTRUCTION

Whether youll be challenging Colorados tundra in a fresh playthrough, or are continuing from an existing save, this next update will immediately grant you access to this new feature. Crafting in Wasteland 3 doesnt require a Crafting skillall you need are recipes and the components to make them. There are effectively three ways to get recipes: 1. By leveling up your Skills! The most basic recipes are acquired automatically as your characters Skills are leveled up. Increasing your First Aid, for example, will also unlock recipes to craft Med Hypos, Medic Packs, and more. Skill-point recipes like these tend to offer the most basic and regularly useful items like ammo, healing items, as well as standard weapon and armor mods.
When ranking up your Skills youll be able to see what recipes the next point will unlock. Not all skills have associated recipes to be unlocked, but itll be clear to you which ones do. 2. Buying from vendors & searching containers! The more valuable recipes are purchased from vendors, or found out in the world in containers and safes. Vendors tend to have standard gear like higher-end mods and grenades, while the more exotic gear and unique items can only be found scattered across Colorado.
3. By acquiring mystery recipe ingredients! Some recipes cant be discovered directly; instead, youll get an idea for a recipe as soon as you pick up a particularly strange or special item. When you do, youll see a notification that an unknown recipe has been discovered, which will tell you what else you need to make it though you still wont yet know what itll all turn into. Only when all the listed ingredients of said recipe are glued, stapled, duct taped, or welded together will you finally perceive the glory of its final form. Ever wondered what youd get if you combined Kens Shriveled Junk with some Mustache Wax? Now, youll finally get to find out!

POTENT COMPONENTS

So you have some recipes and are ready to craft, but this isnt the Nordic realms of yore you aint gonna find pristine iron ingots and finely milled cords of lumber just laying around. As you might surmise, the primary crafting component in the wasteland is (drum roll) Scrap! Now, you may have seen some Scrap in the game before, but with your newfound knowledge of Crafting youre going to want to see a lot more of it. Scrap is obtained lots of ways, but primarily by looting it from the corpses of your enemies, opening containers that dont belong to you, as well as from field stripping weapons you have no need for.
In addition to Scrap, there are of course other components youll usually need to craft your various items. These components are also mostly obtained from dead bodies and containers. Fair warning: Items which may have been previously disregarded as junk back before patch 1.4.0 could now be worth their weight in clean drinking water. Good thing vendors dont seem to have much of a market for all that junk you sold themthat stuff is easily bought back if you revisit them. As mentioned above, sometimes picking up a random piece of junk will kick off a mystery recipe. You wont know what these mystery recipes are going to make, and youll just need to find the odd and sometimes very unique bits and pieces and hope they make something useful when you smash it all together.

CUE THE MONTAGE

Ok, so weve teased a bit at some of what you can make. Ammo and healing items are great and all, but we know what youre thinking: whats the end game here? Whats going to make chasing after recipes worthwhile? So, well simply leave some images here of just some of the things you could discover and craft in the next updatethat is, if you can find the recipe and components. Make no mistake, these cobbled-together items are powerful late-game weapons that, as you could guess, are typically unconventional with unique mechanics.

SAFETY GLASSES REQUIRED

Were in the thick of it now, Rangers. We want to thank all of you in the community for continuing to answer this call to arms and for joining us on this leg of the adventure in Colorado. Were continually humbled by your appreciation for the game, and we want you to know that its our pleasure to continue to pour our frozen hearts and icy souls into this. Stay tuned! We have more features and additions to preview for Patch 1.4.0 in the weeks ahead, as well as content and previews for the recently announced first expansion to Wasteland 3, The Battle of Steeltown.

F.A.Q.

Q: How much will I get out of crafting if Im close to the end of the game? Theres fun to be had with crafting for you, and recipes to be found, but you would very likely need to reacquire reagents you had previously sold to vendors. Additionally, any crates youve opened and NPCs youve talked to are tapped and wont populate with the new recipes available to discover. To be clear, we expect that the feature is going to be most valuable to new playthroughs or those early on in their adventure. Q: So, stuff marked as Junk could be useful? Now you tell me Vendors dont actually sell the items youve dumped on them, so you can buy any crafting materials back as you see fit. Q: The new craftables sound cool, but how cool are they really? They range in coolness from literal shit to some of the best weapons in the game. Good luck! Q: How will this work with The Battle of Steeltown? We're so glad that you asked, imaginary person! If you own The Battle of Steeltown, you'll be able to access additional new crafting recipes that tie into Steeltown's own content, such as weapons and armor. But rest assured that if you dont own the DLC, we aren't holding anything back from the base game when 1.4.0 drops. Q: How are these questions Frequently Asked when you just posted this? Were going to level with you FAQs are a sham. A charade. Its bull hooey. Theyre almost never frequently asked questions, but instead a different way to present the information to the reader to explain complex or confusing ideas. Or sometimes its a way to get across info the presenter left out entirely. They should really be called Important Info We Left Out, Phrased As a Q&A or What We Said Before Might Have Been Confusing, So Here it Is in a Different Format. Were sorry to have to drop this on you but try to have a good day anyway.

[ 2021-04-20 19:54:50 CET ] [ Original post ]

The towering factory complex of Steeltown manufactures all the tech that keeps Colorado running and the Patriarch in powertrucks, armor, weapons, and robots. But deliveries from Steeltown have stopped cold, and all the Patriarch is getting from Abigail MarkhamSteeltown's leaderare excuses. When he sends the Rangers to investigate, they find the place is a powder keg with the fuse already lit. The workers are striking, bandits raid with impunity, and nobody is allowed through the gates, not even on the business of the Patriarch. Without help, Steeltown could crash and burn for good, and take Markham with itbut maybe that's just what it needs. The Rangers will have to decide that for themselves. [previewyoutube=lTulpiGkMUg;full][/previewyoutube]

• Traverse the Steeltown manufacturing complex alone or in co-op in this epic narrative expansion. Take on challenging new quests, face off against new robotic enemies, and solve the mystery at the heart of Steeltown however you see fit.
• Tactical combat is taken to new heights with new mechanics like devastating telegraphed attacks, stacking status effects, elemental shields, and non-lethal weaponsletting you solve Steeltowns skirmishes in brand new ways.
• Combat and gear scaling means that both new and returning players can enter Steeltown during their playthroughs for a level-appropriate challenge, with a story and cast of characters that adapt to the decisions youve already made.
• The Battle of Steeltown expands the base game with new enemies, weapons, armor, and world map encounters.
• Music Supervisor Mary Ramos and Composer Mark Morgan return with original scores and new post-apocalyptic inspired covers.

The Battle of Steeltown is the first expansion for Wasteland 3 and will be available for $13.99 on June 3, 2021. Visit The Battle of Steeltown page and be sure to add the game to your wishlist. The Battle of Steeltown will come shortly after the release of Patch 1.4.0 which introduces some exciting new features. Stay tuned here and follow us on Twitter and Facebook as we preview content and features of Patch 1.4.0 and The Battle of Steeltown in the weeks ahead.

[ 2021-04-15 13:58:55 CET ] [ Original post ]

The entire inXile catalog is on sale from now until April 12 as part of the Xbox Game Studios Publisher Sale. With some of our deepest Steam discounts to date, you can grab the critically acclaimed and award-winning Wasteland 3 for 50% off, Torment: Tides of Numenera and The Bard's Tale IV are both 75% off, and more! Find your new favorite RPG.

[ 2021-04-09 00:59:25 CET ] [ Original post ]

Behold... a pale rider in the distance and it tolls a bell, but for whom doth it tolleth its bell for? Forsooth! It tolleth its bell for thee... You sick bastards. From day one you've been clamoring for us to bring permadeath back to Wasteland, and well, here you go. Have fun watching your Rangers squirm in the snow choking on their own digital blood... reaching up to you through the screen, asking for help. But you can't help them. Or you could but you choose not to. Maybe their evasion was just a little too low a little too often. Maybe if you hadn't thought they couldn't possibly take that much damage in a single turn. Or maybe you kept them standing in the wrong place at the wrong time. Whatever, pour one out and say a little prayer. They're dead. Of course, permadead Rangers aren't the only thing we cooked up in this patch. Scope the highlights below for the meatiest chunks of info in our newest iteration of Wasteland 3, Patch 1.3.3 "Death & Taxes." P.S. Hang onto yer butts, plenty more to come this year! Colorado is just getting warmed up.

Wasteland 3 Patch 1.3.3 "Death & Taxes"

Highlights

• Permadeath
  • Permanent Death (aka Permadeath) is here to challenge your sanity. This is an optional mode that can only be enabled when starting a new game.
  • If enabled, your squad members will be permanently killed if their Downed timer during combat expires. Once theyre dead, theyre dead forever. How death normally works.
  • Permadeath is a single player-only mode.
• Difficult Skills Checks
  • Difficult Skill Checks is here to challenge your squad-building prowess. This is an optional mode that can only be enabled when starting a new game.
  • If enabled when starting a new game, all Skill, Attribute, and Perception checks are increased by +2 over their base value (up to a max of 10). This applies to in-world interactions, conversations, and equipment requirements.
  • We recommend this only for veteran players who want an extra challenge that puts their squad optimization to the test.
• Retraining
  • You can now respec your squad members to reallocate their Attributes, Skills, and Perks!
  • While at Ranger HQ, a new Retrain option is available in the Manage Squad screen, which refunds all points to be spent again. This excludes unique gameplay bonuses such as Cyborg Tech and the Tarjan Machine perks, and any Quirks chosen at character creation.
  • Retraining characters has a cost which is shared with Recruiting new Rangers.
• Recruitment Cost
  • Recruiting at Ranger HQ now incurs a cost that is shared with Retraining.
  • The cost is waived for the first two Rangers recruited from Ranger HQ.
  • The Recruitment/Retrain cost starts at $200 and increases 1.75x (rounded to the nearest $50) with each use, up to a maximum of $3000.
• New Character Customization Options
  • Since youll need to start a new game to turn on permadeath and difficult skill checks, we have 23 new character customization options to use including helmets, masks, makeup, scars, and tattoos are available.
  • Multiple helmets were designed alongside renowned post-apocalyptic costume designers for this update. Check inXile-entertainment.com for photos and info.
• Additional Crash and Performance Fixes
  • Weve been continually working to improve stability on systems with low amounts of memory (older consoles, primarily) and this update resolves one of our most impactful issues. For those of you experiencing crashes after longer play sessions, wed love for you to give this update a try and let us know if it resolved your issue. If not, wed also like to hear from you on the inXile forums so we can continue to make improvements.
  • Weve taken a pass at textures across the game to either reduce or increase texture sizes to create a more consistent memory footprint. This should result in slightly more even performance.
  • Additional misc. changes and fixes that should result in overall improved stability.
• [PC] Added voice chat options to enable Push to Talk, show microphone input source, manage volume, or disable it entirely. The Push to Talk key can be customized in keyboard bindings.

Gameplay

• Game options now have descriptive text in case our very intelligently named options werent clear enough.
• Fixed the Poindexter quirk for Rangers recruited from HQ. Theyll now correctly receive their bonus skill points as intended NERDS.
• Resolved an issue with the bonus Hit Chance from Leadership not increasing correctly as its leveled up.
• We just made the Hoon Homestead always available from the world map regardless of choices and progression. So that better fix it.
• We screwed up the intercom before Vic and now we have unscrewed it.
• Resolved a softlock that could occur while arresting Vic.
• Fixed an issue where you sometimes couldnt save the game after a combat where you hacked a robot or tamed an animal. How does that even happen? Who knows. Well, someone does, just not me. Making games sounds hard.
• Fixed an issue with the Pyromaniac Quirk catching you on fire with elemental damage types other than Fire and Explosive.
• Fixed an issue where the pre-order bonus Colorado Survival Gear items could disappear from the inventory. Did you really pre-order, though? Maybe not. Feels like that was 20 years ago. Its hard to remember.
• Rally will now properly apply to squad members that are at a different elevation.
• Double-dipping into two containers at the same time, where one requires a skill check to open, will no longer cause loot to disappear.
• Fixed a quest progression issue with King Cordite, reported by Ralph. Thanks Ralph!
• The quest One of Us can now be correctly completed if you have Ironclad Cordite in your party.
• Fixed a quest progression issue during "Heads or Tails" when a creature is tamed during combat and then runs away. Story of my life.
• Fixed an issue where the last character in combat killing themselves would make it so you couldnt end your turn.
• Using the Brainwave Destabilizer on enemies in the Clown Museum no longer breaks their animations. Maybe though just shoot the horrifying clown people before they get too close?
• Fixed a quest progression issue with Hard Knox Life when loading specific saves.
• Llewellyns shit had gone missing and was un-interactable. We found the shit and have re-added the shit so you can interact with the shit again now.
• Fixed an issue where the Optilaser 9000 couldnt be used if your weapon was out of ammo or you had melee equipped.
• Fixed an issue where getting Vic to join the Rangers and then cancelling out of the Manage Squad screen would make it impossible to add him later. But why would you do that? Add him immediately, its hilarious and terrible.
• Fixed an issue with Close Call perk causing nitrogen, oil, and explosive tanks to sometimes not explode when attacked.
• The Call to Action mission is no longer able to be completed more than once.
• Mortar Blast now uses the correct amount of AP.
• Rangers at max level (35) no longer level up when receiving the requisite XP. Can you imagine if life stopped at 35? Like a Logans Run Carousel situation and youre running around with a gem in your hand and a robot is shouting about sea greens. I need to watch that again.
• Fixed a possible softlock when taming a Glow Hopper during a combat.
• The Minesweeper perk now correctly applies to gas mines, as god intended

UI & Controls

• Fixed some wonkiness with removing and re-adding custom characters in Squad Manager.
• Making lots of custom Rangers no longer blocks the ability to scroll down to the Companion section.
• [LOC] DEV: "104%" removed from Shockwave mortar description. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!
• Fixed a display issue with the Mechanics skill showing an incorrect effectiveness value at level 5.
• Changed the icon for Big Guns to not be a rocket launcher, which are explosive weapons. Theyre also Big, but we had to pick one.
• Fixed some mpre typos.
• [Controller] Revive now shows the correct AP cost.

Co-op

• Fixed another issue where the host could drive the Kodiak around like a Ranger after their squad had been killed. Cool? Yes. But still a bug.
• Misc. co-op bug fixes and improvements.

As ever, thanks to all, especially those in the community who continue to report issues and bring our attention to solutions and reproduction steps.

[ 2021-03-09 17:07:25 CET ] [ Original post ]

The harsh and unrelenting tundra of a perpetually frozen Colorado calls for harsh and unrelenting fashion statements, and were continuing the character customization cornucopia in Patch 1.3.3 "Death & Taxes" with just shy of two-dozen new options. With Permadeath coming as a feature that you have to enable when starting a new game, theres no time like the near future to dress up your dolls of dooms destruction. Like the Wizard and Knight pieces, were again working with renowned post-apocalyptic costume artists to help us design and bring these pieces to digital-life. This patch features new pieces from Dimitry Zaitsev, as well as Oliver Bindel of Aesthetic-Apocalypse.com famewhere they sell post-apoc pieces you can own! In real life! In honor of bringing these new pieces from Oliver into the Wasteland 3 experience, we asked if hed be amenable to a short interview, and amenable he was!

Oliver Bindel

Q: How did you get into post-apocalyptic costume work? It all started in 2015 at a large fantasy convention right around the corner in our hometown. There was always a small group of post-apocalyptic larpers who showed their costumes and cars. I was not very familiar with the genre at the time, but I was stunned. It wasnt something you see every day; the idea was fresh. The first year my wife and I were just visitors, but on the 2nd event I said to my wife this time we will go in costume! People liked our costumes; this was a magical moment and I was addicted. So we started our label "Aesthetic Apocalypse" to make more and better costumes. Now we don't make costumes only for ourselves, but sell accessories, weapons, helmets and full costumes for private people as well as for video shoots and now also video games ;). We want to do high class costumes which look like they were right out of a movie. Crafting in the workshop is also a good counterpart to my full-time work as a software developer.
Q: For these helmets, or for any pieces you create, where do you begin? Is it with a specific item you want to incorporate or a more holistic idea? Usually, I have just a rough idea how it should look at the beginning. I often have one piece I want to use, for example a lamp shade as helmet, the rest is like a puzzle. I have tons of stuff Ive collected from flea markets and junkyards and I try different parts in various angles and look what fits the best. Sometimes I completely discard a build I was sitting at for hours. I also have lot of unfinished works which wait for the missing piece. Q: Post-apoc can be approached in a lot of ways, do you have a prevailing theme or story you think about while designing your pieces? I normally don't think of existing franchises. I have my own post-apoc setting in mind where the costumes and characters I create begin to live in my imagination. Sometimes I have to do commissioned items that have to fit in a franchise, in this case I have to be close to a theme.
Q: Anything else you want to share with readers? Crafting post-apoc costumes is not all about take old clothes, bust it and add some dirt. Things we normally dont even notice can be turned into art. It is a wonderful hobby I can recommend to anyone who has a liking for fantasy stuff. Especially if your partner also has fun with it. You can even start in your living room, but be careful, you will become a messy person who collects piles of trash. And also your friends and family will bring you trash. I remember the day my father gave me a rusty bear trap as a birthday gift or friends who throw sawblades into a gift basket. We would be happy if you visit us at our website www.aesthetic-apocalypse.com or on Facebook. We have also an online store where you can buy post-apocalyptic gear like the helmets used in Wasteland 3 as well as some vintage military stuff that can be used as crafting supplies: http://darkfuture.shop/
Thanks for taking the time to answer some questions Oliver, we hope everyone loves donning your creations in-game!

Dimitry Zaitsev

We previously interviewed Dimitry about the Wizard and Knight costumes he did for us (which you can check out here) and he returns this patch with some exceptional new mask options. Each of the items below are his concepts, and then the final high-res model and texture which we use to create the in-game items.

Wasteland 3 Dev Team

Not to be outdone, we put our hands to the grindstone and came away with some of our own customization creations (and bloody stumps where our hands used to be). We focused on adding hats from the character portrait art to allow you sync them up closer if you so choose, as well as adding some more scar and tattoo options. Take it away, HTML!
Thanks for checking out the new character creation cosmetics coming in Patch 1.3.3 Death and Taxes releasing soon! Stay tuned to our social channels for the latest updates.

[ 2021-03-03 23:20:05 CET ] [ Original post ]

Do you remember that time we offered a new difficulty mode that was easier than easy, and it caused everyone in the community to think wed lost our minds? We remember. We remember it so hard that weve been tossing and turning in our beds thinking of a way to show you we hadnt lost our minds. Because we havent lost our minds. We havent, so stop saying we have, Mother! Early March were targeting the release of Patch 1.3.3, lovingly titled Death & Taxes. You can tell that were not messing around here. This is exactly the sort of update that those among you who chided the idea of a story mode are going to love. And we get it, because pain is fun. In this update were adding a few new features, including Permanent Death (aka Permadeath), an optional Difficult Skill Checks Mode, and Respeccing. Read on for the gory details.

Permadeath Mode

No matter how many bullets fly past you or how many enemies youre assaulting at one time, youre never really going to feel the threat of despair until youre able to lose a character. And by lose, we dont mean misplace, we mean lose to death. With permadeath, youre going to get exactly that because it works exactly how you think it should. When activated at a games start, it turns your nearly immortal-ish digital characters into something more or less mortal (for a video game), and means theyll croak when their health reaches zero.
One other important note here is that weve made the decision to keep Permadeath as a single player-only feature which cannot be enabled in multiplayer. As much fun as is to watch your friends subjected to painful and horrific video game deaths, co-op splits the team down the middle, and one player losing everyone and then watching for (potentially) hours until the other can make it back to Ranger HQ just isnt a good time. The Permanent Death feature also cannot be disabled once you have opted in at the start of your game. So choose, and choose wisely. If you have the Permanent Death feature enabled:

• When life runs out a Ranger will go into a Downed state, and you'll have X rounds to bring them back into the battle. If you fail to do so you'd normally be able to bring them back with a Nitro Spike or visit to a Doc, but with Permadeath turned on party members permanently DIE. This is really going to bum someone out who didnt read the fine print.
• When a party member dies, they will dump their equipment to the local partys shared inventory. Though they may not still be with you in your journey, at least you've robbed their corpse of their worldly belongings.
• Once a party member shuffles off their mortal coil, their Party Portrait is removed from the HUD and other game interfaces, and they can no longer be selected or used. This is because they are dead.
• Lest you thought that you would be able to commune with the dead via the Party Screen back at HQ, you cannot. Much as necromancers would have you believe otherwise, you cannot add the dead back into your party.
• God forbid, if all Rangers in your party are killed permanently at any one time, you will earn a non-negotiable, do-not-pass-go, Game Over death screen. This is because the light of life has been extinguished from the party and the forces of evil have triumphed. Unless you were the forces of evil, in which case perhaps the forces of light and good prevailed when they killed you.

As an additional note, permanent death enabled games will be noted as such in the save game directory menu that way youll have a good idea at a glance at which of your sessions are more prone to give you indigestion and make your heart palpitate wildly from time to time.

Difficult Skill Checks

Perhaps the idea of permanently dead Rangers isnt your speed? Or maybe youre looking for the ultimate challenge with Supreme Jerk, Permadeath, AND something thatll put your point-spending prowess to the test. Introducing Difficult Skill Checks Mode. This option is toggleable when starting a new game on the Select Difficulty Window, within the Customize Difficulty sub-menu. When turned on, this will increase all skill checks in the game by +2, up to a maximum of 10.

• World interactions (Ex: locked doors)
• Conversation interactions (Ex: kiss-ass checks in conversations)
• Hacking and Taming checks on animals and robots
• Item skill requirements on gear (ex: weapons have skill requirements)
• Attribute requirements on gear (ex: heavy armor requires strength)

(Look. We know. We know it's not just skills. But we wanted to go the extra mile for you. Yes, you, reading this, right now. You're worth it.)
This optional mode was designed to force your Ranger team to hyper-specialize to be successful, making your jack-of-all-trades 'master-of-all' party no longer possible. This is great for a 2nd run-through if you want to be forced into some hard character build decisions.

Respec Feature

Also coming in 1.3.3, youre going to be able to re-specialize your characters, with a caveat or two. Firstly, this can only happen back at Ranger HQ, within the Manage Squad screen. HQ is a relatively warm and comfortable place, so naturally it makes sense that wed offer such a posh option there. Secondly, there will be a cost for respeccing or recruiting Rangers beyond the first two at HQ. No one teaches for free (except maybe those folks on YouTube) so expect to eventually shell out some in-game coin to be able to do so.
If you are loading a pre-1.3.3 save beyond the initial recruitment point at Ranger HQ, were still going to offer you two more free recruit customizations. Beyond that, the cost for respeccing increases by 1.75x (rounded to the nearest $50), up to a maximum of $3000, each time you use it. Additionally, Hiring and Retraining fees increase across the entire squad, not per-character.

Character Customization Additions

When youre digging into that new Permadeath run youre going to be able to do so in style. Its not like a cool helmet design is necessarily going to save the day, but it might just make you feel badass enough to do the thing that makes the thing happen that blows up the thing. In Patch 1.3.3 were baking in 23 new character customization options (tattoos, scars, and helmets) that were born of another partnership with renown post-apoc costume designers. Well share more specific details about those in an upcoming article. Stay tuned.

Colorados Just Getting Warmed Up

Well heck! Were not even into the meat of the year and Colorado is already looking 100% finer than it did at the close of 2020. Did we mention 1.3.3 is getting a heck-ton* of improvements and fixes as well? Well it is! Full patch notes will be delivered when the patch goes live next month. Thanks all for your continued badassery and general attention to helping us improve Wasteland 3. You rock, and we salute you for that. *Actual unit of measurement recognized in some countries.

[ 2021-03-01 17:39:31 CET ] [ Original post ]

It is a mystical time in the mysterious land of Wastelandia! Dragons are afoot, and rogue knights parlay with wicked constabularies to win over fair maidens hearts Ok, ok, fine. None of that is true. Theres nothing mystical about burnt out Colorado in the post-apocalypse, and there most certainly are no dragons mucking about. So if theres no dragons and wizardry, then what in the hell is with the dungeon spelunking theme? Well, its a strange world, people dress up like clowns and dead presidents, and our last patch was themed after a bowl of cannibal chili, so, whatever. Its a weird world. Let us get back on thine proper track! Last week we announced that Patch 1.3.0 would be getting the first set of free costumes, as well as a tease of a new difficulty setting: Tourist mode. Of course thats not all, and this patch is packed full of fixes and changes to improve the quality of your lifewhich is our #1 goal. Alright, well, time to dig into the patch notes! Update: We originally said PlayStation was going to be delayed, but its not! All platforms will be published around the same time.

Wasteland 3 Patch 1.3.0 Robots & Rangers

Highlights

• New difficulty mode: Tourist
  • Tourist mode is easier than Rookie, letting you enjoy Wasteland 3s story, with combat difficulty taking a back seat.
• New cosmetics!
  • New Hair, Beards, and Pants have been added to character creation.
  • The Handmade Wizard and Knight costumes will let you roleplay all your Robots & Rangers fantasies. Anyone already past the Cornered Rats mission (Garden of the Gods) will receive them automatically, while anyone progressing through the quests will want to head back to Ranger HQ to claim the care package outside the front doors. Equip the costumes at the wardrobe in Ranger HQ or the clothing shop in Downtown Colorado Springs ... and attack the darkness!
• Intelligence now gives +1 skill point for every point of Intelligence spent, up from +1 every other point.
  • This change applies retroactively to existing save games.
• The Book Learnin and Answering Machine achievements are now achievable.
  • Note: The missing Book Learnin note becomes available after passing a Leadership skill check when first meeting the Patriarch and then speaking to Magistrate Silas Watkins in Downtown Colorado Springs.
  • The missing cassette tapes "Kidnappers in Trouble" is in the Gett Family Homestead in a new container. "A Proposal" is in the Machine Commune, just west of Vivisecto.
• Resolved an animation stutter that appeared as a framerate drop while moving, and was particularly noticeable on the PlayStation 4.
• More actions are now able to be bound to keyboard and mouse, most notably camera panning. The game will also unmap double-bound keys to prevent input conflicts, and warn you about missing keybinds before you leave the menu.

Gameplay

• Rangers who have been downed should now be visible after transitioning to a new scene, as though you dragged their bloody corpse along with you. :D
• An issue preventing some players from being able to proceed through the slides during the song at the end credits has been resolved.
• Loading a save game where a Ranger was incapacitated will now keep them incapacitated, where before they would be in a selectable-but-unusable zombie-like state.
• Fixed the issue that could cause a game over screen immediately upon loading a save game.
• Fixed bugs that could prevent companions from joining the squad under certain conditions.
• Ironclad Cordite now comes with the Cyborg Mods perk unlocked, because, duh.
• Resolved a blocker in the Hard Knox Life quest where the Head Rancher would restart the quest rather than allow completion. Were aware of some oddness that can still occur during this quest and are looking to clean it up in a future update.
• Creepy Dolls have an extra info field in the Archive Screen now with creepy, creepy lore.
• Fixed an issue with Poindexter quirk that could cause CON to go below 0.
• You can now reselect the "No Quirk" option in the character creation screen. But come on. Theyre cool. Pick one.
• Fixed a bug where creating more than 6 custom characters would prevent the player from scrolling down to the companions in the Manage Squad Screen.
• Fixed softlock occuring after the last character with AP kills themselves.
• Fixed a bug that could cause an infinite enemy turn after declining La Perlas mission and attacking her while she leaves.
• Fixed an issue where re-adding Lucia Wesson could sometimes cause a black screen.
• Resolved a softlock occurring when loading into Ranger HQ after sending Lucia to the Garden of the Gods.
• Ditso Gogo now drops a Clown Wig Ornament.
• Grenade boxes in Yuma are reachable now.
• Fixed a bug that was preventing the Minesweeper perk from working with gas mines.
• Fixed a bug that was causing Heavy Machine Guns to ignore the Friendly Fire setting. Fire through your friends with gusto.
  • Note: Deliberately targeting a friendly when you attack will always cause damage, regardless of Friendly Fire setting. Shoot responsibly.
• The Call to Action mission can no longer be completed multiple times.
• Revive AP cost shown in the prompt is now consistent with its actual value.
• Mechanics skill shows the correct Repair Kit effectiveness value at level 5.
• Fixed an issue where the first Ranger in the squad would always attempt to use Charm Animal, even if you had a higher-skilled character.
• Fixed a frw typos.
• Fixed a bug in which the Pyromaniac quirk was triggering when any elemental damage was used, not just explosive and fire damage.
• Fixed an issue where attacking Marshalls would appear to add reputation points in the pop up. This was a display issue only; they were properly subtracted from the reputation.
• Prasads health bar will appear injured during the damn fight, as shes mere moments from her guts oozing nice like a melted malted.
• The Prasad Memorial Hologram can no longer be targeted and killed for XP and loot. You monsters...
• Players can no longer bypass the initial Cordite/Mechanic confrontation by retrieving him from Ranger HQ after entering Yuma County Speedway the first time, which would cause unintended issues later in the quest.
• [Localization] In Polish, the Sadomasochist quirk now has correct extra text in its description.
• Payasos in the Clown Museum scene now have visible bodies after reloading a save. Something, something, scary invisible clown joke. Whatever.
• Fixed a bug in which the player could leave a conversation too early with Liberty Buchanan in Yuma County Speedway.
• The Stormer Perk no longer consumes AP for an attack even if its trigger conditions have been met.

Balance

• Intelligence now gives +1 skill point for every point of Intelligence spent, up from +1 every other point.
  • We want smart characters to FEEL smarter. We werent satisfied with how intelligence related to your characters build. Also, given our recent nerf to the crit chance that intelligence granted, we wanted to give it a little boost.
• Weve updated how the Suncatcher works in Garden of the Gods. Rather than doing tons of impact damage directly to targets, weve updated it to instead focus on spreading fire-patches around the battlefield.
  • We werent happy with how much the sun-catcher trivialized that otherwise difficult fight in Garden of the Gods. We wanted taking the back route to feel like a distinct advantage, but still wanted the player to feel challenged.
• Weve adjusted the Scar Collector fight in Ranger HQ to be more challenging. Weve updated the enemy composition, as well as the number of NPC Rangers likely to be around during that fight.
  • We found that players didnt really need to participate in that fight to win it. The NPC Rangers would ultimately clean up that fight for you without any significant losses. Weve shifted the power in the fight so that if the player does not actively stop the Scar Collectors then the Rangers will suffer significant losses. The fight should be more challenging overall.
• Weve updated the duel vs. Steeltrap to be more interesting. Weve updated the enemys starting position and composition to provide a more interesting set of choices, and Steeltrap no longer starts combat directly in front of the players squad.
• Weve increased the number of enemies in the final boss battles of the game.
• If the only remaining enemies in a combat are either hacked robots or tamed animals, the robots will automatically self-destruct and the animals will flee from combat. No more being forced to murder your temporary allies!
• We fixed that Meat Maker weapon damage exploit. You knew it was going to happen eventually.
• Doctors no longer cure mutations gained from World Map radiation. They can now only be cleared using No-Glo. This is so players are better able to choose whether or not to remove their mutations.
• The game launched with a bug that allowed you to change your Quick Slot items in the middle of combat. This update fixes that. Its a decision thats intended to be made before a fight breaks out.
• We've updated several interior spaces to deal more appropriately with grenades. Grenades can no longer be thrown over walls (through the ceiling) in interior spaces like the Survivalist Bunker or the Sans Lux Apartments.
• Shotguns no longer take Scope mods. If your save game had a Scope mod installed onto a Shotgun, it'll be put back into your inventory.
• Non-hostile World Map encounters that give free loot, such as camp sites, are now less common.

UI & Controls

• UI elements across the game have been polished, refined, and adjusted.
• Main menu options will no longer be grayed out incorrectly. Note: this issue may still occur while in the Options sub-menu, which will be resolved in a future patch.
• Ability tooltips now more accurately reflect the damage or healing that you will do, including benefits from skills such as First Aid and Explosives.
• The game will now accurately display the percentage of CON damaged or healed by certain abilities inside of ability tooltips.
• Holding down right click with your mouse to direct your squad will now have the camera follow them around. As god intended.
• The edge scrolling speed (moving your mouse to the edge of the screen) is now the same value as the speed at which the camera moves using the keyboard. They can be adjusted in the options menu.
• Junk and mission items, by default, are now hidden in the default All Items view of the Inventory. They're still viewable in the Junk and Mission Items tabs. This was done to reduce the clutter on the main Inventory view. If you prefer the old behavior, you can change it back in the Options Menu.
• When shopping for stackable items (such as ammo) at a merchant, the UI will now display how many of that item you already own.
• Recruiting and replacing a squad member will now correctly update portrait and tooltip in Inventory and Attributes tabs.
• Alt-tabbing out of the opening cutscene with subtitles enabled no longer causes them to desynchronize.
• Friendly Fire damage text will no longer appear when crouching, defending, prepping, or ambushing.
• You can now appropriately drag and drop companions in the Hire Companion Screen.
• A sound effect has been added that plays when you try to buy something that you cannot afford to help underscore that your life choices have all led to this single disappointing moment.
• In the Vehicle Customization Screen, the scroll wheel will now properly scroll the info in the tooltip if its too long, rather than cycling to the next option in the list.
• We fixed several bugs relating to dragging, dropping, and equipping gear on characters while in the Merchant Screen.
• We've unified the tinting of our ability icons so they're more visually consistent.
• An audio stinger was added to the combat turn start banner in co-op.
• Players can now drag and drop items between their Quick Slots.
• Added improved UI messaging for when the player tries to equip/unequip items during combat.
• The save game name field is now selected by default so you can immediately start typing your game name without having to click on the text field.
• Fixed an issue where players were unable to use Select Character keys in the Merchant Screen by using keybinds.
• Animal Companions and Followers such as the Provost now show their CON bars when hovering over them during exploration gameplay.
• Fixed an issue with the secondary weapon preview not displaying in the Manage Squad Screen.
• [Controller] Resolved a few objects and characters that couldnt be easily interacted with when using a controller. E.g. the Slicer Dicer in Ranger HQ.
• [Controller] Inspecting pits in Garden of the Gods will no longer result in infinite interactions occurring.
• [Controller] [Microsoft Store] The controller setting will now persist when closing and restarting the game.
• [Controller] Rotating your camera while aiming an AoE weapon will no longer cause the AoE indicator to move.
• [Controller] The crouch / stand button now grays out when not usable.
• [Controller] Fixed some d-pad wonkiness when navigating between status effects and inventory.
• [Controller] Fixed a bug in which gamepad users were able to attempt to buy the non-existent 11th point of a skill or attribute. Nice try, bucko.
• [Controller] Status Effect descriptions will now appropriately disappear when players close the inspect window.

Co-op

• GOG players can once again invite each other to a co-op game using the Galaxy overlay.
• Fixed an issue where a Merchant Screen would continue showing when disconnected from a multiplayer session.
• Multiple people trying to join the same co-op lobby at the same time will no longer result in one of them being stuck on a black screen.
• The Minimap will now be present for the guest when initially loading into a MP session.
• Fixed an odd bug where the host could in a rare instance be able to run the Kodiak around a zone like it was a squad member.
• Fixed an issue where passing a Ranger to another user in the Manage Squad Screen would not allow that Ranger to be moved/removed from their squad until the screen was opened and closed again.
• Fixed a UI issue where attempting to modify the same weapon/armor at the same time caused the UI to be partially unresponsive.
• Fixed an issue where co-op players were sometimes not able to add companions to their squad even though they had room.

Art & Audio

• Jarett Dorsey's brain will now explode even more spectacularly than before. Huzzah!
• Strike attack effects have been changed to use a blue color palette, making them more visually consistent and distinctive.
• The Golden Toaster companion has had its sound effects improved.
• Added sound effects for when the player repairs the Kodiak using a Repair Kit.
• Drools are now a bit noisier.
• Torches in the Bizarre Warrens are a bit noiser.
• Added additional sound effects to the Mission Notification Banner.
• Improved the visual effect of the Flamesaw Cannon.
• Ash is now easier to hear when he speaks to you over the intercom in Little Hell. Say it for the people in the back!
• Ranger HQ now has sliding doors instead of swinging doors. Sliding doors are cooler.
• Rocket launchers that deal cold damage now use a cold explosion visual effect.
• Approaching a Scorpitron should no longer produce an ear melting effect that sounds like giant robots making sweet love to each other.

Misc.

• The Time Capsule Challenge contest has ended, and the note and badge have been removed and replaced with the winner-designed item.
• GOG users can now unlock achievements while offline.

[ 2021-01-27 04:06:46 CET ] [ Original post ]

The sun crests the horizon as the party approaches the heart of the broken town. The smoldering embers of the previous days battle with the Filthurburgs (semi-human denizens of the bog) fill your lungs, and the stench of turmeric and sulfur weave together with notes of dead flesh and wet dog. Ahead of you, Farani Brygosons parapet looms in the distance. (Youve already been summoned so you wont have to roll for initiative this time.) As you enter the gate to the forlorn castle within the townships walls, a Fel-Gnome assaults you with its ugliness before attempting to assault you with its fists. Fortunately, youve brought with you Glamdror the Magnificent, and Sir Kelkeep the Brave! There are others but youve forgotten their names As the Fel-Gnome lashes out from the archway, Glamdror incants a spell learned from ye olden dayes when magic filled the sky and wizards would stand naked on the hilltops early in the morning and cry out to the heavens. Faster than the blink of an eye, the mage thrusts his arms forward with rapacious delight. As his eyes are lit from the mystical blue glow emanating from his hands you hear a *sizzle pop* before a temporary blindness overcomes you. A moment later you can see that Glamdror has encased the sad and stinky creature before you in some kind of ice that seems less cold than freezing but is probably cooler than warm. Through their translucent arcane prison, the beast looks upon you with bewilderment and a slight hint of mournful curiosity as they begin to shimmy inside theyre attempting to break free! What do you do?
Venture into Wasteland 3s next big updatePatch 1.3.0 Robots & Rangerswith two free new costumes, the Handmade Wizard and Knight! Patch 1.3.0 is undergoing some final fixes and testing, and we expect it to release by the end of the month. Youll receive these new costumes after completing the Garden of the Godseither claiming them from a package in front of Ranger HQ for new playthroughs, or automatically added if youre past that pointand can equip them at the wardrobe in Ranger HQ or at the clothing shop in Downtown Colorado Springs. The Handmade Wizard and Knight costumes were a collaboration between inXile and Dimitri Zaitsev, an accomplished post-apocalyptic costume designer and artist. We were excited to work with Dimitri and asked him if hed walk us through his thoughts and process for creating post-apocalyptic costumes and props. Q: Have you done anything like this before? Blending fantasy and post-apoc? Ive never done a post-apoc wizard or knight before, but the general thought process behind them was not new to me at all. The genre lends itself extremely well to ALL kinds of inspirations, and that is one of many reasons I love it. While there are prominent examples and tropes, there is actually no unified definition of what "post-apo" even means for the most part. The only fixed thing is that its "something after an apocalypse". But what the world looked like before or what has evolved after - thats always the interesting problem for artists and designers to solve.
Wasteland Knight concept by Dimitri. But the more important question here is: how do the designs fit Wasteland specifically? Wasteland is based on a retro-futuristic version of America during the 80s and 90s, followed by a nuclear apocalypse. That per-se is not fantasy, but the universe has a TON of humor and fantastic elements in the mix as some of its integral defining parts. There are a lot of super-crazy factions, characters, designs and even gameplay mechanics already. Just think of the Payasos, or the Monster Army, or the goat mortar you can mount on your car, or the one NPC who wears pristine suits and never curses.... So I dont think that these new outfits deviate from the games baseline level at all. Q: What were your first thoughts and inspirations when the initial idea was proposed? My first thought was "Hell yeah!", and my inspiration were wizards and knights - what else could it be? :) Aaron (Aaron Meyers, Wasteland 3 Art Director) and I agreed that it would make sense if those outfits were created by wastelanders who got wind of knights and wizards being a thing in the world before the Deluge of Fire, became fans of those ideas, and decided to (re)create them - or at least take some inspiration from them. Historical fact and fiction would get mixed up, so maybe the Wizard thinks that wizards were real, and that the 12-sided die worn around the neck is a real magical amulet. Or maybe they know its not real but have assumed the persona anyway. They might mean it dead-serious, or they might be wearing it ironically or just for fun, or even to scam others by selling them "magic potions" which are just frog pee. Or maybe before joining the Rangers the wizard used to travel around towns and use their "magic" powers to give real medical aid to sick children & tell them stories while doing so. Or maybe those costumes were simply used by a post-apocalyptic theatre group to create plays of knights and wizards for their audience. There can be so many interpretations for this, and I love it.
Wasteland Wizard concept by Dimitri. Part of my task was to create something that looks aesthetically appealing and well-balanced while still maintaining the idea that the fictional in-game person who made it had to work with limited resources & skills available to them. You can see that the knight was able to scavenge some authentic armor parts from a museum, the wizard has repurposed an electric Christmas star, and both characters have used a lot of various scrap materials & whatever tools they could get their hands on in this world of scarcity. Other than that, I just took the archetypes of a wizard and a knight and mixed them with the ideas described above. It was important that the designs look as clich as possible in their main shapes, so that they are immediately recognizable as what they are supposed to be. Q: Are there any core design tenets or rules you have when thinking in the post-apoc mindset and how you approach a given design? Post-apoc or not, I just think about how things would work in the given part of the given universe, and then I create the design going from large parts to small ones while applying the core fundamentals of art (color, composition, etc.) to make it visually pleasing. Doing so feels as immersive and mentally rewarding as playing a game or watching a movie.

Final models and textures for Handmade Wizard and Knight. Specifically in a post-apocalyptic setting though, you have to think about what materials and tools people would have available. Most of the time its going be something dilapidated, rusty, broken down, and improvised. Or sometimes not - some things can be found in bunkers, be manufactured rather well by post-collapse societies, and thus look new, and even employ futuristic technologies. But then you have to balance them out with dirtier gear to achieve an overall look of whats easily understood by the player as "post-apocalyptic" - in most cases anyway, there can be no 100% dogmatic approach to this. You also must think about what would be reasonably practical in general, and then balance practicality with "the rule of cool". As for finding ideas for the details of a design, I just think of "what could any given item be used as, regardless of its original intended pre-war purpose." And sometimes I go a step further and think "but what original intended purpose would make its current use even more interesting?"

In-game Handmade Knight and Wizard costumes. There is a LOT more to all of this once you really start breaking it down though. I could fill whole volumes with this stuff. Anyone who wants to hear more from me about art, post-apo costuming, and gear should check out my YouTube channel. Q: Thanks for taking the time to give us more insight! Anything else you want to share with readers? Check out my Facebook, Instagram, and ArtStation, and I hope you will have fun with these outfits when (re)playing Wasteland 3! And hey, there miiiiiight be more of my designs showing up in the game soon, who knows. ;) Who knows, indeed! (Actually, we do.) Thanks again to Dimitri for helping us create these fantastical costumes. Keep an eye out for more news regarding Patch 1.3.0 releasing for Wasteland 3 soon, and more costumes to help you RP it up in future patches.

[ 2021-01-14 16:55:49 CET ] [ Original post ]

[previewyoutube=utH7LdAbMWs;full][/previewyoutube] You heard him! Our best deals on The Bard's Tale and Wasteland series' are now live on Steam! Get the full Bard's Tale series for 70% off, and the Wasteland series up to 85% offincluding the deepest PC discount for Wasteland 3 yet, 40% off! If you've been sleeping on any of these RPG treasures, don't let them sit under your tree any longer! It's time to unwrap these deals and treat yourself to some of the finest roleplaying money can buy. Wasteland 3 recently updated with its biggest patch yetPatch 1.2.0 "Meat Maker Marinade"and is now available with Brazilian Portuguese and Italian subtitles, as well as having just launched for Mac and Linux! It's the perfect time to head to the post-apocalypse.

[ 2020-12-22 18:34:06 CET ] [ Original post ]

Happy holidays, Wasteland 3 is now available for Mac and Linux! We greatly appreciate your patience as we worked to bring the game to these OS, and were happy to have it playable for you before the end of the year. We hope you enjoy exploring post-apocalyptic Colorado during your holiday break. For our Fig backers, to redeem your pledge's digital rewards, be sure to read through Crowd Ox's instructions listed here. Please note that co-op functionality is limited for Mac and Linux versions until early next year, check our Knowledge Base article for more info. See you next year, inXile entertainment

[ 2020-12-17 20:13:15 CET ] [ Original post ]

The patch we announced in our State of the Frozen Union address is here! Wasteland 3 Patch 1.2.0 Meat Maker Marinade

Highlights

• Balance changes have adjusted some core systems to ensure a true wasteland experience. Developer commentary is included below from David Rogers to help explain the thought process and intentions behind the changes.
• We finally resolved the issue that could cause the two starting Rangers attributes to go into the negative. Thanks to everyone who had to deal with this for your patience.
• We resolved a few progression blockers which were giving some of you grief, including the Yuma County Speedway door and Little Hell gondola.
• The incredibly annoying slamming-into-cover issue is now addressed! If you still want your controller to vibrate endlessly we hear there are apps for that.
• [PC/Xbox] Brazilian Portuguese and Italian subtitles are now available!
  • Note: These additional subtitles are expected to be available on PlayStation by early next year.

Gameplay

• The intro cinematic and live-action short are now viewable from the main menu under a Special Features option.
• When switching away from and back to the original two Rangers, their attributes will no longer change to negative values.
• Resolved an issue where characters would play the cover animation repeatedly when moving into cover from a crouch.
• Sawblade ammo has been added into merchants and enemy drop tables.
• You were right. More sniper ammo has been added into the intro Ambush scene.
• Vendors have smartened up and will no longer trigger Antique Appraiser on junk that youve repurchased.
• Fixed an issue where Yuma County Speedway Doors were not interactable under certain conditions.
• Fixed two conversation issues with Liberty that could fail to advance and require restarting the game.
• Fixed an issue where the Rebel Scout would not appear in Hoon Homestead after being sent there to meet [redacted].
• Fixed an issue with the Photon Amplification Lens that caused the UI to fail to load.
• Medical Marvel should now be working as intended. For realsies.
• An issue preventing players from completing the Unwelcome Guests quest, which previously would not allow them to confront Mama Cotter, has been resolved.
• Resolved an issue preventing the Varangian Blood perk from activating upon an ally being downed in combat.
• Resolved an issue where Rangers could get another blank disc and redo the quest to talk to the Machine Intelligence after transferring a certain consciousness into a certain somebody.
• The Machine Commune factions AI has been flashed with the latest firmware, and the Commune will now no longer hate the Rangers after they upload an important quest element.
• Shooting a cryo rocket at the barrels next to the Scorpitron in the Tellurium Mine will no longer cause the explosion to explode infinitely. We respect physics, and infinite explosions require infinite energy, which doesnt make a whole lot of sense within the scope of this very realistic and very cool video game story.
• As rad as this was in theory, if not in practice, the Kodiak is now no longer able to Monster Truck through Scorpitronsno matter how much dew from the mountains may have been consumed beforehand.
• Pay no attention to the mysterious DevCube behind the curtain! The DevCube that was not meant to be seen with mortal eyes has been removed from the Paint Mines. May it live forever in our hearts.
• The deer in Santas Workshop can now be tamed without a bunch of backtalk.
• Several weapons that previously did not produce scrap or mods when field stripped now do. Cha-ching!
• Fixed the text describing headshots bonus effect. Its always done +75% damage, but it previously displayed +175% damage in error.
• Added the Cog Pendant into the game. This is a backer item we intended to have in the game when it released, but it wasnt there. So we fixed that.
• Fixed an issue that would softlock the initial Jodie Bell hostage cutscene if the player swapped to the second character right before the cutscene.
• Fixed an exploit that allowed the player to redo the Reagan questline after talking to the Machine Intelligence after completing a certain quest objective.
• Fixed an issue where flame jets were invisible while they were active. (Fun fact: The Invisible Flame Jets was the name of our prog-rock band back in the 80s).
• Removed the random Godfisher in the Yuma Speedway after the Godfishers leave camp. Go home, random Godfisher, youre drunk.
• Fixed an issue where Drilldogs didnt attack until all other enemies had died.
• Fixed an issue where Doctor NPCs wouldnt heal the players to full health.
• Fixed an issue where Mortar Strike would not consume rocket ammo.
• Killing Dee Sharp in the Scar Collector Mines while Cordite is in the party will no longer softlock the cutscene.
• Fixed an issue where the Spirit Animal perk provided buffs for the whole party, and not just that particular character.
• Fixed an issue that prevented players from lockpicking the doors in the Sans Lux Apartments, even if they had the requirements.
• Lucia now speaks up when a player first walks into the Marshals station in Downtown.
• Fixed an issue where the Survival skill was giving some of the custom Rangers the Charm Animal skill for free.
• Failing when trying to fix Morningstar now displays explosions before a fade to white to really hit home the fact that you are a failure.
• Fixed an issue where the player couldnt get The Stink off when using an Antidote. Be thankful this game isnt scratch n sniff.
• Fixed an issue where grenade trajectories would get blocked while inside the Clown Museums bigtop.
• Fixed an exploit where vehicle upgrade items could appear in the player's inventory if the utility upgrade was unequipped.
• The Clown Museum ballerinas are no longer active before the player arrives.
• Fixed an issue that prevented the player from saving Austin Pease if they didnt initially have the money to free him, and also fixed an issue where players were able to pay half the required amount for that task.
• The quest War of the Worlds should now complete properly when the player wipes out all the robots in the mines.
• Players can now reach max reputation with the Monster Army.
• Fixed an issue where players, while in high cover, couldnt activate self-use items while using a two-handed blade.
• Fixed an issue that could cause the Dorsey rocketeer on the dam fight to be invisible during that battle.
• Crit damage values should no longer dip into negative values and heal enemies Total head scratcher, that one.
• Fixed an animation issue that would cause the player to slide if they shot and moved from a crouched position.
• Firing on an NPC who can use deployable turrets will now result in their turrets correctly turning hostile as well.
• Fixed an issue that prevented the player from talking to the Weaponsmith in the Bizarre Interior without visiting The Warrens.
• Resolved an issue where an enemy would infinitely rotate after tripping the alarm in the Scar Collector Mines Security Habitat
• Fixed an issue where loading an autosave during the Fishlips fight would prevent the player from being able to fight Fishlips.
• The Patriarch and his Guards will now always be hostile if the player decides to go on a murder-spree outside of the palace or in Downtown.
• Fixed an exploit that let the player get infinite cash from Paris in the Bizarre Exterior.
• Fixed an issue that prevented the player from completing the Counterintelligence Mission.
• Fixed an issue where swapping weapon slots and modding the primary weapon would put the mod on the secondary weapon.
• Fixed an issue where the player couldnt complete the Santas Workshop questline unless they tricked Santa to check for cookies.
• Fixed an issue where players couldnt complete the Santas Workshop questline if during the fight Sugar Plum Mary was killed.
• SAL is now prevented from occasionally chiming in on the radio and playing music during combat in Denver.
• Players who pick the Mopey Poet background will now get the +5 Evasion bonus as intended.
• Melee characters who start combat in cover will now face the correct direction on start.
• Updated Turret enemies to fix highlighting issues.
• Fixed an issue that would cause Masato to disappear if you gave him the ramen but didnt recruit him to Ranger HQ.
• The Smuggler Devastator enemy type will now attack instead of cower behind cover and do nothing.
• Fixed a conversation choice with Vivisecto where the players choice was nonsensical. (Isnt it possible that all choice is in fact nonsense? Something to think about.)
• Fixed the logic for blackjack games in Cartel Nightclub after the first few hands.
• The Ranger Generals Hat now correctly provides the stat boosts stated.
• Fixed multiple issues when reviving a downed player character.
• Fixed a rare issue where the targeting line during combat wouldnt disappear.
• Fixed an exploit where the benefits of crouching persisted after saving and loading.
• Fixed an issue where the Kodiaks health wasnt being saved properly.
• Terminals in the Monster Army Bunker should now reward experience for Nerd Stuff skill checks.
• Removed one of the two Goodbye options in Hallies conversation.
• Fixed an issue where an enemys arms would stay highlighted red after being targeted with a Precision Strike.
• Pvt. Pellegrin no longer plays pretend soldier, and will now hold his gun like a good guard back at Ranger HQ.
• Increased the talk radius of Major Tomcat when you see him on the bridge.
• Fixed an exploit that would generate healing when swapping weapons while certain status effect buffs were active.
• Fixed an issue where the player would get ejected from the conversation with Hardee Knox for seemingly no reason.
• Fixed an issue where the Area of Effect circle disappeared on certain terrain.
• Fixed multiple issues with Precision Strike not highlighting enemies/enemy parts properly.
• Fixed a rare issue that made the Cannibals up front in the Cannibal Jamboree not hostile even after killing their friends. (Fun fact: Pacifist Cannibals was the name of our punk band back in the 80s).
• Fixed an issue in the endgame where [redacted]s Scouts werent getting revealed by the Fog of War during the conversation with them.
• Fixed an issue where Jarretts knife could appear to not be properly attached to his hand during his first line of dialog.
• Area of Effect abilities that are self-centered (ex. Rally) now work if the player is crouched.
• Vehicle wreckage should now no longer obscure characters during the final fight.
• Fixed an issue where status effects were ending too soon after combat ended.
• Fixed some issues with the Night Rider Horn, Michael.
• Fixed an issue where during the Tinker combat, the enemys first turn wouldnt end if the player attacked first.
• Fixed a minor combat grid issue in Ranger HQ Razorback encounter area.
• Fixed an issue where the save spinner UI element would stay on the screen permanently after the game was saved.
• Fixed a missing combat grid issue in one of the random encounter areas.
• Fixed a weird issue where shotguns and flamethrowers with damage type mods installed could act like pistols and fired single bullets rather than the correct ammo.
• Scotchmos animations have sobered up now and work as intended.
• Fixed an issue where getting ambushed by Tinker pulls a bear into combat.
• Fixed an issue with Irvs dialog with the bookseller.
• Fixed an issue where MacTavish was unreachable in his Ranger HQ cell, and could not be talked to.
• Destroying the Reagan statue early will now properly update the mission, A House Divided.
• Fixed an issue that occasionally caused the start point for the Scar Collector Mines to be in a different location.
• Bill will finish his Gotta go find my gun bark before running off to his dea err.. Destiny!

Balance

• The XP needed to level up has been adjusted. XP requirements for levels 8 through 20 have been only slightly increased, while XP requirements from 20-30 have been greatly increased. This brings the functional max level down to around 27, from around 29.
  • We were finding that players were finishing the game at a higher level than we expected, and beyond level 8 players did seem to chronically over-level their content. This resulted in skill checks feeling less demanding than we desired. We really want players to deliberate over every point spent. The goal of this adjustment in the XP curve is to ensure players who are 100%'ing our content are still experiencing some friction in the late game, while being sure that players who dont want to do everything and who still complete the main story are able to reach the necessary level to complete the final quest.
• For existing players, you wont lose any levels, but your next level up will have the correct experience requirement. This will result in your next level up being just a little further away than it was before.
• Reduced the effectiveness of Aramid Pads and Trauma Plate Inserts to 2 and 4, down from 4 and 6.
• Reduced the effectiveness of the Lights Out perk down to +100% from +200%.
• Changes to critical hit chance:
  • Critical hit chance was getting much higher than we wanted, and was having an outsized impact on combat. Enemies were critically hitting players too often, which didnt feel good, and player critical hit chance was getting up too high, particularly for characters who werent necessarily even trying to build for crit chance. These new changes target bringing overall crit chances down, mostly for characters who arent consciously building for crit chance. We did this rather than bringing down the maximum crit damage. We like big damage numbers, they feel good, but we want them to be the exception, not the norm.
    • Critical hit chance for NPCs has been reduced to about 62.5% of its previous value.
    • Critical hit chance granted from the Intelligence stat has been reduced to +20%, from +25%.
    • Critical hit chances granted by gear, mods, and the cat companion have been reduced.
    • The Focus drug grants less critical hit bonus than it did before (but still a lot). +15 down from +20.
    • High level light armor helmets no longer grant bonus crit chance. Instead weve given them status effect resistance or Evasion bonuses.
• Assault rifles have been given +3m range.
• Congrats! Youve made it halfway through the patch notes. Get yourself a snack.
• The Gopher Hunter perk has been buffed to decrease enemy cover effectiveness by 40%, up from 25%.
  • The goal with these two changes is to buff the assault rifle, but also to give it a different use-case vs. the SMG. While the SMG is about heavy damage and high risk flanking maneuvers, the assault rifle should be a reliable work-horse that can deliver consistent damage when it's needed while staying safe behind cover.
• Characters who have been stunned will gain a Stun Protection status effect after it wears off, stopping any character from being stunned two turns in a row.
• Tier 4 and 5 loot crates have a reduced chance to drop above-tier gear, making tier 5 and 6 weapons rarer earlier in the game.
• Shotguns and flamethrowers have had their Torrent Strike damage reduced to 200% of weapon damage, down from 300%.
• Pistol Pete will no longer use the Trick Shot ability.
• Weapons and armor now display their level, making it easier to compare items and understand if your gear is at the appropriate level for your characters.
• Sniper rifles have had their bonus strike rate reduced. Low level sniper rifles have no bonus strike rate, but will start to gain the stat at higher levels.
• High level sniper rifles now cost 7 AP to fire, up from 6.
  • This is largely to ensure sniper rifles maintain the tradeoff of being incredibly hard to fire twice in a turn, while still being powerful.
• Animal Companions, Followers, and Deployables will now distract enemy NPCs less, or more, based on your difficulty setting. Players playing on Supreme Jerk will find that enemies are much more focused on attacking Rangers vs. deployables and followers, while players on Rookie difficulty should still be seeing their animals tanking significantly for their team.
  • We saw a dominant strategy form in which lots of low-level animal companions were being taken, along with many of the followers, which resulted in them having too large an impact on combat (namely in how much damage they soaked up). We know people love their animals and generally will reload their save game until they survive the fight, so rather than killing your furry friends off, were limiting how much the enemies are shooting them vs. your own Rangers. This, combined with reduced follower tanking will hopefully put a larger emphasis on debuffs at higher difficulties.
• Deployables now have a maximum level theyll scale to, stopping them from being overly impactful in the late game. The most notable change is that Machine turrets will stop getting better after level 14, while laser turrets will scale up to lvl 20.
• The skill needed to install a Razor Box weapon mod has been reduced to 6, from 10.
• Satoshis case is now more valuable to vendors.
• Rocket launchers now cost 4 AP to reload, up from 2.
• Cheebus now sells Tier 5 gear, down from Tier 6.
• Jackhammer shotguns AP to fire is increased to 5, up from 3.
• Food items are now more expensive (AP) to eat in combat.
• Pre-order bonus weapons have had their vendor value lowered, so if theyre sold they do not dramatically impact the intended economy.

UI & Controls

• Added a keybind option on PC for Loot All.
• The minimap should now always default to on.
• Utility items will now sort as Armor when filtering items.
• Double-clicking a character portrait on the HUD now centers the camera to that character. What a time to be alive.
• Fixed an issue where premade Rangers werent showing up in the Manage Squad Screen.
• Player health can no longer show below 0 when downed.
• Fixed an issue that would cause enemy UI stats to disappear if the player opened and closed the inventory menu up a lot.
• An issue that prevented some quirks from being selectable during character creation has been resolved.
• Fixed an issue where the first slot of the inventory could be unresponsive. Youre the first slot! Come on Be better, first slot.
• Fixed an issue where the Sell Junk keyboard shortcut wouldnt work.
• Minimap image no longer does a jitter dance when you move the camera separately from your rangers.
• [Gamepad] The A prompt now appears when highlighting an NPC to talk to.
• [Gamepad] Resolved the issue that made it impossible for a companion to join if their dialog was cancelled.
• [Gamepad] Fixed an issue that made laser tripwires unable to be disarmed with a gamepad.
• [Gamepad] Removed the second close button option in the controls option menu.

Console

• Additional stability improvements made to assist with older console crash rates. Work will be continuing in future updates to further reduce crash potential.
• New Feature While out of combat, press Y (Xbox) or Triangle (PS4) to go into targeting mode.
• Unplugging a controller while the game was thinking caused some issues, specifically during saving/loading, and during character creation. We didnt think that was good, so we fixed that.
• Fixed multiple issues where console saves and load screens would hang or cause the game to crash.
• [Xbox] Fixed an issue where the player could get stuck in a merchant screen immediately after adding a new party member.
• [Xbox One] Fixed an issue where the initial dialog was not heard nor seen at the Arapaho Caravan.
• [Xbox One] Fixed an issue that caused colored lights to appear on the combat UI grid.
• [Xbox One] Button prompts seen in the main menu now use the correct UI font.
• [Xbox One] The Dorsey prisoner no longer clips into the wall in Ranger HQ.
• [Xbox One S] The game should no longer crash if the user leaves the game open on the world map for an extended duration.

Co-op

• Players are now forced to be on the same patch version to play together.
• Were even more confident that weve fixed the issues causing infinite loads in co-op. Were looking at you, persistent 33% load hang (as well as some other nasty outliers)!
• Fixed an issue that prevented players from accessing the Multiplayer menu with just the keyboard.
• Fixed an issue during the world map where both players were hearing different radio calls.
• Fixed an issue where speech bubbles would persist after an enemy died.
• The chat window background now appears with a cool misty cloudy background instead of a translucent blue.
• Fixed an issue that caused the radio voiceover to cut out for the guest.
• Fixed an issue where the initial dam combat sequence was zoomed in too much.
• Fixed an issue where GOG players could not host a Direct Connect multiplayer session.
• Fixed an issue where the guest would get stuck in any conversation with a skill check involved if the host wasnt there in the conversation.
• Fixed an exploit that allowed players without the pre-order bonus content access to it by joining a host with that content.
• Fixed an issue where Serial Killer Quirk didnt work on guest playersnow you can kill to your hearts content.
• Fixed an issue where calling for a tow (P.S. did you know you can fast travel back to Ranger HQ from the world map by clicking on the radio?) would sometimes not move the Kodiak back to Colorado Springs.
• Fixed an issue where the landscape bars from the intro movie would persist during the initial Ambush attack.
• Fixed a desync issue on the world map that would cause the guest to be stuck on a loading screen while the host could drive around normally.
• Fixed a desync issue on the world map that would cause the guest to witness a world event while the host did not, and would still be able to drive around.
• Fixed an issue where guests could not heal with quickslot items.
• Fixed an issue where the button prompts were not being localized during multiplayer sessions while in the Manage Squad menu.
• Resolved issues that could occur while one player attacked while the other was in the Hire Companion screen.
• Fixed a UI issue on the client side that would prevent status effects from appearing after loading a different level.
• Fixed an issue that would break the players camera if the other player left mid-character creation.
• Fixed an issue that caused the guest to see incorrect skill information on the hosts characters.
• Fixed an issue that would create autosaves for the guest as well as the host.
• [Xbox One] Fixed an issue where the garage doors in Ranger HQ would appear closed for the guest.
• [Windows Store] Fixed a very specific issue where the font did not fit within the UI buttons while in borderless windowed mode in Polish or French while using the very large text size option. Phew.
• [Windows Store] Fixed an issue that would prevent the host from reviving the guests custom rangers.
• [Windows Store] Fixed an issue where a misleading error message displayed when a player attempted to join another player whose lobby was set to Block.
• [Windows Store] Fixed an issue where a player would be unable to do anything after the other player left or was kicked from the session.
• [Windows Store] Players should now be able to connect to hosts via Direct Connection.
• [Windows Store] Fixed an issue that could prevent the guest from being able to load a save after exiting a multiplayer session.

Art & Audio

• New makeup options in character creation. Get fabulous, treat yourself!
• Payaso Bastard, Ditso Gogo, and Tricksters have had their models and textures adjusted.
• Weve made general visual effect cleanups and enhancements throughout the game.
• The Frozen Lake in the Godfisher Windfarm now has ice.
• The minimap in The Warrens is now aligned properly..
• Fixed a logic issue that caused non-hostile NPCs to only cower during combat.
• Fixed an issue that caused weather to show up inside the dentist building outside of the Bizarre.
• The patrolling nightclub goon near Delgatos cell in the back will stop doing a half-jig mid patrol.
• The turret inside MacTavishs Machine Shop now shoots louder bullets.
• Fixed a Kodiak weapons animation issue.
• Destroying crates with objects on them will have all objects on top be destroyed instead of just the crate.
• Animatronics no longer play a human death cry when they die. Theyre creepy enough as it is.
• The flying flags freakily flapping n flailing round near the mechanics garage in Yuma have calmed down now and will not clip through their poles.
• Star-that-Dreams will no longer lurch around when the player talks to them.
• Scar collectors were a little too quiet in their compound in Yuma.
• Fixed an issue that caused Prasads fixing sound effects to persist even after she left.
• Cleaned up the Radio lighting on the world map.
• Fixed various weather issues in Downtown Colorado Springs.
• Cleaned up the Fog of War in the Airport Commune to prevent players from seeing behind the curtains...
• When using Precision Strike weapons to kill an enemy, the proper blown off limb animation will now play. Hooray!
• Raised up the lights in front of Manifest Destiny so characters wont clip into the vehicle.
• Fixed the lighting inside the Playground area of the Warrens.
• Fixed the lighting inside the Old Survivalist Bunker.
• Fixed the positioning of one of the Suncatchers in Garden of the Gods.
• Fixed a broken texture in the Bizarre.
• Fixed an issue with Flabs Radio call not being heard when the player leaves the Bizarre.
• Scotchmos oral thrush is under control, and his tongue is no longer white.
• Melee fist combat impacts on human NPCs now have sounds, just like in the movies. PHOOSH!
• We can hear your fear. The Fear status effect now has a sound.
• Fixed an issue where Morningstar would be the only speaking companion on the world map.
• Fixed one of the Scar Collector explosion animations to now display correctly.
• Reagan AI has learned more animations. Its a neural net processor, a learning computer.
• Fixed an issue where the audio was missing when the player clicked on the ground to move the squad.
• Fixed the lighting in the final combat encounter.
• Fixed some overlapping VO between General Woodson and Corporal Gonzales in Ranger HQ.
• Fixed an issue where Vics beard and eyebrows could appear duplicated and not set on his face right.
• Fixed an issue where a second explosion sound could be heard every time the player entered the Airport Commune and Santas Workshop.
• Healing using a Medic Pack should no longer play the heal sound effect multiple times.
• The robot arms in the Department of Energys Scorpitron room now have sound.
• Fixed the lighting in the Department of Energy near the Scorpitron.
• Luck bonuses now play a sound effect when they trigger.
• Shooting a Synth now has a satisfying impact sound.
• Healing from an Antidote will now play a more appropriate sound effect.
• Fixed the Kodiak character portrait so it no longer shows up as a black rectangle.
• Animation improvements and polish for Drools. (Fun fact: The Polish Drools was the name of our first synthpop band back in the 80s.)
• Bomb Hoppers have their SFX working now.
• Adjusted the alignment and animations on the Main Menu selections.
• Removed Land of Confusion from playing in the shuttle in Airport Commune.
• America the Beautiful no longer plays outside of combat.
• Wind effects should now properly be seen during the Ambush Site level.
• Fixed the UI Contrast levels of non-highlighted Main Menu options.
• Fixed various weapon models during character previews in the inventory screen.
• Fixed a bug where character animations would freeze up if the player clicked too rapidly.
• [Windows Store] Fixed an issue where tattoos were not properly showing up on tattooed faces.

Misc.

• Auto detecting graphics settings now takes resolution into account when determining the recommended display settings.
• Improvements have been made for 21:9 display resolutions.
• Fixed an issue with save games in Yuma County Speedway taking an abnormally long time to load.
• Found and squashed instances of infinite load times that could occur when transitioning from Ranger HQ as well as from other specific maps.
• The Marshals Law pistol no longer says revolver under it.
• The idle frequency for the Golden Toaster companion has been reduced. Also, the game now ensures that idling stops for endgame and conversation states.
• Improvements have been made in regards to the pacing of the epilogue.
• The game now displays an items level inside the tooltip (weapons and armor).
• The toaster altar display name has been localized.
• Fixed localization of the word Any in Polish.
• Improvements have been made to player companions animation rotation speeds.
• Changed out a certain Rangers coffee from decaf to fully caffeinated. This individual should no longer repeat the very things they just said.
• Right clicking on the radio allows players to interact with movement on the world map.
• Fixed an issue that caused background text to stretch across the screen.
• Removed the Debug Crates from the Gas Mask Kids scene.
• Fixed an issue that would cause the game to stay in windowed mode if it was swapped to fullscreen mode on a non-supported resolution.
• The game should now properly launch in fullscreen mode, as selected.
• Changed the save game naming clickable area to make it easier to click on.
• Starting a new game and immediately returning to the main menu no longer displays letterboxing permanently.
• Fixed an issue that caused the chat log to remain permanently stuck on the screen.
• [Windows Store] Found some placeholder text in the Main Menu. Removed it.

[ 2020-12-16 04:03:57 CET ] [ Original post ]

Rangers, weve just about made it to the final stretch of 2020. Whod have thought that was possible? It seems like this year was the surprise that just kept on giving. Despite the trials and tribulations that the last several months have put in our paths, weve taken solace in the Ranger creed of survival. As others have stated, perhaps all this work dealing with the theme of the post-apocalypse helped prepare us for the challenges in our way this year. All the same, just as the Rangers understand, survival alone isnt enough. Theres yet work to be done. We were extremely proud to be able to share that over 1 million players have suited up and braved the wilds of Wasteland 3, and released a special video to celebrate. Weve been fortunate to see good reviews, positive feedback, and have recently garnered a few award nominations too. But since release weve worked tirelessly to resolve issues, have tackled some of the biggest bugs, and were even able to reduce our load times to mere seconds in some cases. Were not done yet though, and our biggest patch, as well as new OS and language support, is coming soon. Read on for the full details.

Patch 1.2.0 Meat Maker Marinade

Since launch our focus has been on resolving some of the most pertinent issues and blockers as quickly as possible. But now weve taken a bit more time and have been working on longer term fixes and balance changes. Our next patch, which were lovingly referring to as Meat Maker Marinade, contains a ton of improvements and fixes. Why are we calling it Meat Maker Marinade? Well, with this update were past most of the urgent issues and are focusing on letting the flavors soak inbalancing the sweet and salty, the sour and spicy, and allowing the co-mingling juices to fill in all corners of the gaming palate. What kind of meat is it, you ask? Come on, you know better than that. In the wasteland you never ask what kind of meat it is... Were expecting Meat Maker Marinade to launch next week across all platforms, and of course shortly before it goes live well be sharing the full patch notes. Now, as hard as weve tried, we dont expect this update will contain absolutely every fix possiblesome are taking a bit longer to implement and verify. We are, however, following up this patch with another patch (1.3.0) very quickly afterward, and are targeting to hopefully get that one out before the end of the year. Its a pretty good sized update in its own right, and well have more info on it after 1.2.0 is out the door. One of the issues we get a lot of feedback forthat were continuing to make progress onis overall stability on low-memory platforms. If youre playing on PC chances are this wont affect you, but it can impact consoles, and especially the lower memory original-release variants from last gen. Were continuing to make improvements on this front, and its something well be continuing to improve with each update.

Mac and Linux

Earlier in the year we announced that Mac and Linux would be delayed, but that we expected to have them available before the end of the year. Despite the challenges the year threw at us, Mac and Linux clients will be available on Steam and GOG with Patch 1.3.0! As noted above, were targeting Patch 1.3.0 to hit before the end of the year. We know our Mac and Linux communities have been especially patient with us, and we sincerely appreciate you hanging in there as we work to get Wasteland 3 into your hands.

Brazilian Portuguese and Italian

Another addition we previously stated would be available before the end of the year would be the inclusion of Brazilian Portuguese and Italian subtitles, and these too are slated to come with Patch 1.3.0 which we're targeting to launch before the end of the year. Were in the process of implementing the achievements, Steam badges, and trading cards, and you may see some of those things starting to pop up as we prepare for their release. Estamos quase l! Ci siamo quasi!

2021

Believe it or not, Wasteland 3 is just getting started, and 2021 is going to be a heck of a year for Team November. In addition to the deployment of our previously hinted at DLCs (more info coming in the new year), more work will continue to be done on performance, game balancing, and bug fixes. Were also going to be adding new features like permadeath, and enhancements for animal companions, as well as more options for players to better customize their experience. You can be sure that as we get closer to the release of these features, well have more info to share. We want to thank all of you in our community for helping make this year as good as it can be, despite the challenges which have affected us all. With that said, it never hurts to have a great game to take our minds off the challenges we face in the real world, and weve made it our aim to give you an awesome RPG, and will continue improving and adding to it. Thanks for being there with us and playing Wasteland 3. Your enjoyment and feedback youve shared have made it all worthwhile. For now, this is Ranger HQ signing off. - Wasteland 3 Team

[ 2020-12-02 16:40:56 CET ] [ Original post ]

Youre listening to the sweet, sultry sounds of the apocalypse. If you can hear this, lucky you! Youre one of the chosen whove made it through the perils of the wasteland. Hopefully, youve done it in style. Whats that you say? You need more Wasteland 3 tunes to get you through the frozen tundra? Dont worry, DJ inXile has got you covered. Since the release of Wasteland 3 on August 28, weve been thrilled to see the overwhelming positivity toward the games soundtrack. Were excited to announce that as of today the vast majority of the games remaining soundtrack has been added to the album thats already available with the Digital Deluxe edition of the game on Steam. Thats right! If you already own the soundtrack, youre getting the extra tracks too. If you dont already own the Deluxe Edition of the game, well heck! What are ya waiting for? Go on and get it! Eagle-eyed observers will take note that most, but not all the tracks are now available in this listing. Believe us, we tried to get all the tracks, but had to stop just short of getting into a knife-fight with some lawyers. Anyway, if youre a fan of Wasteland 3s soundtrack (and lets face it, who isnt?) then head on down to your local entertainment store (and by entertainment store we mean Steam) and snag the rest of this aural goodness thats ready for ear-plundering. Here are the original 17 tracks: 1. Battle Hymn of the Republic (Joshua James) 2. Aspen Exterior Exploration (Mark Morgan) 3. Frozen Waste Exploration (Mark Morgan) 4. Survivalist Bunker (Mark Morgan) 5. Savage Council (Mark Morgan) 6. Under Ice (Mark Morgan) 7. Wasteland 3 Opening (Mark Morgan) 8. Aspen Exterior Battle (Mark Morgan) 9. Under Ice Exploration (Mark Morgan) 10. Ambush Site Combat (Mark Morgan) 11. Ambush Site Dam (Mark Morgan) 12. Colorado Springs Exploration (Mark Morgan) 13. Denver Exploration (Mark Morgan) 14. America The Beautiful (Greg Jong and Marmoset) 15. Little Vegas Combat (Mark Morgan) 16. The Blood of the Lamb (Joshua James) 17. Down in the Valley to Pray (Greg Jong and Marmoset) And here are the 25 new tracks that have just been added: 18. Stark Winter level load themes (Alexander Brandon) 19. Character Creation (Mark Morgan) 20. Ambush Site Suspense (Mark Morgan) 21. Ranger HQ Desert Rangers theme (Mark Morgan) 22. Colorado Springs Combat (Mark Morgan) 23. Garden of the Gods Suspense (Alexander Brandon) 24. Bizarre Exploration (Mark Morgan) 25. Bizarre Combat (Alexander Brandon) 26. Denver Combat (Alexander Brandon) 27. Savage Council Combat (Mark Morgan) 28. Endgame Combat (Alexander Brandon) 29. Encounter Combat (Alexander Brandon) 30. Encounter Exploration (Alexander Brandon) 31. Golden Scorpitron (Daniel Dean) 32. Green Acres (Ethan Allen) 33. Welcome Back (Joshua James) 34. Monster Mash (Graham Barton) 35. WKRP (Joshua James) 36. Battle Hymn of the Republic (Young Survivalist Choir) 37. The Blood of the Lamb (Young Survivalist Choir) 38. Down to the River to Pray (Young Survivalist Choir) 39. Welcome Back (Young Survivalist Choir) 40. Is Buchanan A Man (Young Survivalist Choir, lyrics by Nathan Long) 41. Ranger Ballad (Busker Gang, lyrics by Nathan Long) 42. What We Did in Colorado (William Whitmore featuring Kent Holmes, lyrics by Nathan Long) So there you have it! What was once a great tribute to the Wasteland 3 soundtrack is now an almost certifiably complete* soundtrack. Yall had been asking for this for the longest time, and now were happy to oblige. Thanks for your patience while we worked to pack in all these extra-delicious tracks into this humble musical offering.
*With exception to one or two tracks you may notice are missing and which almost certainly have not been expertly extracted from the game files by crafty folks and uploaded to places where such things get uploaded.

[ 2020-11-19 17:28:50 CET ] [ Original post ]

We're honored to have Wasteland 3 nominated for Best Roleplaying game at The Game Awards! After years of development and pouring ourselves into creating a reactive and deep roleplaying experience, it's gratifying to see that work continually recognized.
Your vote matters! And we'd of course appreciate yours: https://thegameawards.com/nominees/best-role-playing

[ 2020-11-18 20:20:22 CET ] [ Original post ]

Our continued thanks to those playing and enjoying Wasteland 3, and for those of you who have continued to report issues, and bring our attention to solutions and reproduction steps. It's been heartening to see so many of you looking to help us continue to improve the experience, and we're dedicated to doing just that for the foreseeable future. This update has some big changes, including the oft-requested improvements to load times, as well as fixes for some progression blockers, and more. Reducing the load times was a big undertaking to essentially rewrite how our level load procedure works, but we think you'll appreciate the resultespecially if love to save and reload to get that perfect outcome (we won't tell). Patch 1.1.2 is now live! Please note that for cross-platform co-op on PC, both the Host and Client will need to have matching versions.

Highlights

• Do you hate long load times? We hate long load times. Our engineers changed how the game loads levels, reducing load times by up to 60% on PC and 25% on console.
  • As one example, on our PC test hardware a 38 second load time was reduced to 13 seconds.
• Fixed an issue where combat could become unresponsive with use of the Chain Ambush Perk for sniper rifles.
• Resolved several progression blocking issues in Yuma County Speedway.
• Enemies are now much less invisible after use of Precision Strike.

Performance & Stability

• Significantly changed how levels load, resulting in up to 60% faster load speeds across the game on PC, and on average 25% faster for consoles.
  • Note: your hardware, save data, and which level youre loading into can all impact load times. Your mileage may of course vary.
  • As part of this change, auto-saves will no longer occur as a part of the level load, and instead happen concurrently. This can lead to situations where youve loaded into the next scene but an auto-save is still in-progress. Dont close the game while the Ranger star is spinning.
• Major Prasad will no longer crash your game if you exit while shes still talking.
• Additional stability and performance improvements for consoles that were too technical for the person writing these patch notes to understand and explain easily. Its good stuff though. All good stuff.
  • Well be continuing to target and resolve specific stability issues as necessary.

Co-op

• Players can no longer attack companions that are in the process of being recruited by the other player, in case your partner likes to troll.
• Fixed an issue where the Guest client could become unresponsive when talking with Hope Emerson and choosing to side with Del Hackett and her people.
• Improved stability while in the Hire Companion screen.
• Players can now use the keyboard in the lobby screen to choose game type, options, invite player, and ready up.
• Enabled UI Narration in the Direct Connection interface and for multiplayer game messages sent through chat.
• Fixed an issue with voice chat text-to-speech and speech-to-text.
• [Microsoft Store] Resolved an issue where guests couldnt rejoin a lobby theyd just left.

Quests & Gameplay

• Resolved an issue where quirks could become unselectable during character creation.
• Fixed a potential blocker with Medical Marvel not allowing revival without use of a Nitro Spike.
• Resolved a rare issue that would block you from speaking to a companion.
• The door in Yuma County Speedway leading to Liberty is now unbreakable as intended.

Misc.

• Fixed minor graphical issue with the radio.
• Some cinematic characters have been given microdermabrasion treatments and now have better looking skin.
• Skill levels for recruitable characters now display properly in all cases.
• Mission status should no longer display incorrectly after quest completion or updates.
• Resolved issue where the spinning Ranger Star would permanently stay on screen after saving the game.

[ 2020-10-08 20:35:16 CET ] [ Original post ]

Thank you to everyone for your support as we continue to add to and improve Wasteland 3. This update was focused on a lot of the issues we've heard about from you the most, and we're hoping it goes a long way toward improving your play experience. However, we're not done yet. Our next patch is a big one, and contains hundreds of individual changes including fixes, balance improvements, and load time reduction. Please be aware of our Known Issues list for issues we're aware of and working to resolve. Thanks for your patience, and see you in the wasteland. Highlights

• Numerous changes aimed at improving stability on consoles.
• Co-op fixes for load screens stopping at 33%.
• Antique Appraiser has been appropriately balanced.

Wasteland 3 1.1.1 Patch Notes Performance and Stability

• Weve made over a dozen individual changes aimed at improving performance and stability, especially on consoles.
  • Were continuing work on additional improvements for future updates.
• Some slight load time improvements have been made.
  • Were finalizing some more impactful load time reductions which youll see in a future patch.
• Fixed an issue where if computer consoles were used during combat, game performance would decrease.
• Performance has been improved when using Precision Strike.

Co-op

• Load screen hangs (i.e. 33% load bug) have largely been resolved for co-op games.
  • In a few cases the load bar may appear to be stuck at 33% but will eventually load after 5 or more minutes. Were aware and actively working to resolve these.
• Addressed an issue with the Direct Connect option that was preventing some guests from connecting to their hosts.
• Fixed crash that could occur in co-op while players engaged with Major Prasad.
• Players with different build versions are now blocked from playing with each other.
• [Xbox One] Resolved an issue where the user would not be able to join a second game if it was hosted by the same person.

Quests and Gameplay

• The Antiques Appraiser perk no longer triggers on Scrap.
  • This closes a loophole in which Scrap could be simply bought and sold for a profit using the Antiques Appraiser perk. We found that in some cases the perk was giving players far too much money when Scrap was included.
  • Of note, this change will not be reflected in the text descriptions until a subsequent patch.
• Antiques Appraiser now has a 5% chance to multiply the value of Junk by 40x, down from 50x.
• A persistent issue with the Fishlips encounter which would result in the game locking up has been resolved.
• Resolved an issue where the epilogue song would sometimes not play all the way through.
• Merchants now round up item values, instead of down. Buying in bulk is always better!
• Libertys Warbots are now immune to hacking, which should make her appropriately more challenging.
• Resolved an issue where the Survival Skill was granting Animal Whisperer abilities.
• Resolved an issue where some missions related to the Gippers were unable to be completed under specific conditions.
• Resolved an issue where players were being charged the correct amount of skill points on purchase, but the tooltip and the bar were using the wrong value to calculate/display the cost.

[ 2020-09-23 03:08:03 CET ] [ Original post ]

Greetings Rangers, We launched Wasteland 3 just two weeks ago, and if it was a nonstop effort before we launched, its definitely been nonstop since. In a lot of ways launching a game is not when work stops, but when it starts, and we got right to work on taking in bug reports, feedback, and working toward making fixes and improvements as quickly as possible. One thing we discovered as bug reports came in is that our testing process had been too focused, and not enough time had been spent playing the game naturally as an end user would. Were going to have some deep discussions and post-mortems on our processes going forward, but whats important right now is getting issues addressed. None of this is intended to minimize the issues, but we want to share more details about what were seeing and how were working hard to address the most impactful ones. For those of you that have had a poor experience, or outright couldnt play, we sincerely apologize, and are making fixes and improvements as quickly as possible. Weve already released a hotfix and the 1.1.0 patch, and the next oneupdate 1.1.1will be out toward the end of next week. Rest assured, as soon as we have a fix for a major issue were doing our best to get a patch out. Well certainly have more that we want to address after this update, but ensuring major blockers and crashes are resolved is our number one priority. Some of the most challenging issues have been for our Xbox One and PlayStation 4 players, with general game stability. While weve made some improvements with the two patches since launch, we know theres more to do. In the next update well have a fix for most (not all) of the issues leading to crashes, and they should go much further in helping improve game stability. We know this has been frustrating for many of you, and were going to continue devoting time and effort toward it for as long as we need to. Another annoying bug weve been trying to squash has been the co-op 33% loading issue, where in co-op you may not be able to load into a new map and get stuck at the 1/3 mark. We thought we had this one fixed, but its been difficult because we just werent able to reproduce it internally more than one or two times. We got desperate enough that we actually put out a bug bounty internally to the first employee that could reproduce it. We also enlisted some of you to help, and worked directly with co-op teams out there to get more in-depth logs using development builds. Thanks to those efforts were pretty sure weve finally been able to nail this one down. These obviously arent encapsulating all the items were working on or that will be in the 1.1.1 update, but we wanted to give you some insight into our focus and process supporting Wasteland 3 and its players into the foreseeable future. Hopefully before too long well be able to start sharing some of our ideas for how we want to add to and expand the experience, but right now were focused on ensuring you can enjoy the game as it is. Keep the bug reports and feedback coming, and well see you in the wasteland. - Wasteland 3 Dev Team

[ 2020-09-11 22:34:35 CET ] [ Original post ]

Wasteland 3 Version 1.1.0 Please note: Co-op players should ensure their client versions match as mismatched clients can cause unforeseen issues. More info here. Quests and Gameplay

• Fixed issues that could cause character and quest progression to be lost
• Fixed Fishlips encounter
• Fixed an issue where some players would see an endlessly looping Ambush Site intro
• The La Perla quest can now be completed
• Polly and the Cyborg Chickens have been beefed up

Co-op

• Fixed issues that could cause character and quest progression to be lost
• Fixed multiple issues that could cause an infinite loading screen
  • We're aware this issue is still impacting some players and are investigating
• Fixed a sync issue where the host and guest could see the Kodiak in different places after receiving a radio call
• The host and guests will no longer get different radio calls on the world map
• Resolved an issue where one player would only see a black screen while the other is watching the intro video
• Resolved an issue whereby one player getting disconnected in character creation within Ranger HQ would cause the other players game to become unresponsive
• Fixed a crash that could occur when a second player joins an in-progress conversation with Irv
• Fixed a crash that could occur for the guest when talking with Hope Emerson

Stability

• Fixed a possible freeze when approaching a specific robot in Broadmoor Heights
• Fixed an issue where the UI could disappear if viewing the main menu for a long time

[ 2020-09-04 18:57:08 CET ] [ Original post ]

We've released a small update for Wasteland 3.

• Improvements to memory usage that can result in a more stable play experience

[ 2020-08-29 18:07:17 CET ] [ Original post ]