Wasteland 2 Post-funding Update #23, First Look at Gameplay

After encountering various problems and bumps along the road, inXile has finally released the promised early 2013 big update for Wasteland 2, which, among other things, contains the first look at gameplay with a meaty 17-minute narrated video. The video contains examples of combat, writing, UI customization, skill usage and more.

Here’s a snip from the text part of the update (which also includes new concept art and a music sample):

This represents not just the strong synergy of the inXile team but the effects of your continued input via the forums. The game has continued to improve thanks to this communication, and Wasteland 2 will be better for it. The benefits have ranged from changes to the combat mechanics to finalizing the name of our attribute system.

It also represents the success of working with Unity and the asset creation experiment we did to increase the variety and density of the world look. We were pleasantly surprised at the talent that submitted art content, and we look forward to continuing to work with them.

I’d also like to thank the military personnel who joined our Yammer group to help us develop the slang and communicate more real world experiences for us to draw on. We love to learn little things like how much they hate it when movies say (Over and out!). There is no (out) after (over) dammit!

This first level you will see is one of the first areas you will encounter in the game. The agricultural center was also a part of Wasteland 1. It was an area that Chris Avellone had some affinity for and he did the design for the level. Also thanks goes out to Nathan Long, who provided this area’s clever writing. We had a chance to show Chris the level last week, and when we commented that it was coming together he said (not coming together . it has COME together.)

Our objective was to show off some of the HUD and how both the combat and skill systems work. There are many elements not represented here but to name a few:

‘¢ Minimal particle effects
‘¢ Minimal sound
‘¢ Mini-map not working
‘¢ Inventory, logbook and other character screens not shown
‘¢ Not all skills (in and out of combat) being represented
‘¢ No world map movement
‘¢ It needs more messaging in the UI
‘¢ And not a comprehensive list of all the combat variables

Sorry if we’re over communicating, but it’s just a reminder: we’re just past the halfway mark, so don’t expect to see everything that you can expect from the final game just quite yet.

Update: Apparently Vimeo removed the video, so inXile uploaded it on YouTube.