Wasteland 2 Interview

I suspect Brian Fargo and Chris Avellone made a bet on who could do more interviews in 2013 or something along those lines, considering the increasing number of interviews they’ve been giving as of late. Jokes aside, a new interview with Brian Fargo on Wasteland 2 has been released by PC World, and tackles pretty much what we’ve learned to expect from this kind of interviews.

Here’s a snip:

What role will fans who funded Wasteland 2 play as the game is developed?

Having the fans involved is the most different and important part of the whole project. We have a lot of pressure to deliver more than ever before, and it’s important that we make a great game; not just for ourselves, but also for the next round of people who want to do big Kickstarter projects. People are watching and keeping an eye on us, on Tim Schafer and on others. Even though I have more personal pressure than ever before, I feel confident because we’re vetting everything with the fans along the way.

We’re soliciting feedback from the backers, or the fans, on the priority of things, and I think if you listen to them you really get great information. We took it even one step further, which is we have a lot of people that are always wanting to be involved with the game and sending us writing samples, art samples, whatever. We formalized that process. We don’t have a huge staff, so we asked our fans to submit things to the Unity Store and we’ll go through it. This allows people that want to break into the business a chance to get their assets in the game.

The first couple of rounds of submissions that have come in have been fantastic stuff. It’s been great for us, and the creators can resell their work on [the Unity Store] and make money from it. We buy it from them.

What’s the time frame and storyline for Wasteland 2?

The sequel to Wasteland takes place 15 years after the first game ended. The basic premise is that the world was, for the most part, destroyed by nuclear bombs. One part of society has regressed, while other parts have – through technology and exponential growth – become even more advanced than society was before the apocalypse.

So there are these conflicting pockets, but within that there’s a group of Army engineers that took refuge in a prison to escape the devastation. They survive, set up the Desert Rangers and tackle the job of bringing law and order back to this uncivilized world. That’s where you, as the players, take control of a group of Rangers going out there and dealing with the host of issues. It’s sort of a (Cops) on steroids in a strange, post-apocalyptic world.