Wasteland 2 Kickstarter Drive Launched

There is no press release as of right now as I suspect the inXile Entertainment team is all fast asleep on the west coast, but Kickstarter has just put the Wasteland 2 drive online, with a goal of $900,000 (as announced, Fargo will put up $100,000 of his own money if they don’t make $1M). “So, just how kick-ass will Wasteland 2 be?” Read on:

Nuts and bolts time.
We’re going back to the original and building from there. No first person shooter, we’re going top down so you get a tactical feel for the situation. And we’re not ditching the party play to turn it into some hack-and-slash bloodfest. It’s turn based, tactical, with a storyline that will be deeper and broader.
We’re determined to keep the gritty, grim and satirical writing. We’re going to pitch those moral dilemmas at you. You’re going to be faced with the consequences of your actions.
We’re planning on an initial 6 months of pre-production. We’ll nail down every important element that you, our creative partners, want. Once we have all that figured out, we buckle down for 12 month development cycle. During that time, players can get a sneak peek on a private closed beta through Steam. In addition, we will be giving you constant updates and showing you our progress along the way.

Kickstarter only takes credit cards via Amazon, and all pledges will only be credited to your card if the drive hits the goal.

UPDATE: The press release is in:

Wastelandâ„¢ 2 is live on Kickstarter!
After 20 years, the sequel to the godfather of post apocalyptic RPGs and inspiration for Falloutâ„¢ is now up for fan funding
Newport Beach, CA – March 13, 2012 – inXile Entertainment today confirmed that Wastelandâ„¢ 2 is now live on Kickstarter for fan funding. Following in the step of the other successful crowd sourced projects, Wasteland is looking to the fans of classic role-playing games to realize this long awaited sequel.
“I have waited a long time to make this game, and I now have my dream team put together to help make it a reality,” said Brian Fargo of inXile Entertainment. “I had the main storyline created by Jason Anderson, the co-creator of Falloutâ„¢. We have Mike Stackpole and Alan Pavlish aboard who were the main designers of the original Wastelandâ„¢. Mark Morgan is doing the music and he composed the score for Falloutâ„¢1 and 2. And we have the fantastic talent of Andree Wallin helping with the concept art.”
The original Wasteland, released in 1988 has been widely held as one of the top RPGs of all time. IGN named it one of the top 25 PC games of all time and it was short-listed for inclusion in the Smithsonian Institution’s current (Art of the Computer Game) exhibition. inXile has stated that Wasteland 2 will stay true to its roots. The game promises to be a top down, turn based, tactical RPG, similar to its predecessor. The player will be forced into moral dilemmas and will need to deal with the consequence of their actions throughout the game. Not all decisions are a net positive but it’s up to the player to decide which course they take.
With Wasteland 2 being fan funded, inXile has said they will be focused on working closely with the established Wasteland fan community and their Kickstarter backers to create the game the fans are asking for. To Brian Fargo, this is more than just a sequel to Wasteland; (This is a chance to move the power back to the developers, allowing us to make genres of games that publishers just will no longer support.) Brian Fargo went on to say, (This Wasteland sequel exists only because of the fans have pushed us to make it happen. As excited as we are to make the game, it’s the fans’ excitement that matters the most, and their quotes say it all.”
“This is the best thing that’s happened in years”- Jon Oden
“Thank you so much for doing this! Just tell me where to send my money, you got all of it!”- Bruno Germani
“A group of 4 Desert Rangers with tactical combat it’s a dream become reality with Wasteland 2”- JMR Orange
“I am seriously about to have a nerdgasm this year! Avengers is coming out in May, the Hobbit is in December, AND Wasteland 2 is being made!” -No Mutants Allowed site reader TorontRayne
“WASTELAND is the game that made me a gamer. It’s still my favorite game of all time, simply because of how influential and mind-blowing it was at the time.” – Rock Paper Shotgun reader Zerosociety
About inXile Entertainment:
Founded by long-time industry veteran @BrianFargo in 2002, inXile Entertainment develops interactive entertainment software for all popular game systems, personal computers and wireless devices. The most current projects being the Bard’s Tale for iOS and Choplifter HD.