Wasteland Remastered Released

The remastered edition of Wasteland, the original post-apocalyptic RPG that launched back in 1988, can now be purchased on Steam, GOG, Microsoft Store and Xbox One thanks to the combined efforts of inXile Entertainment and Krome Studios. The game is priced at $14.99 or your regional equivalent and you can pick it up by following this link to the official website.

Here’s what Wasteland is all about:

Originally released in 1988, Wasteland brought the post-apocalypse to video games and inspired a genre. Play one of history’s defining RPGs with completely overhauled graphics, sound, and expanded musical score.

​ The year is 2087, nearly a century after an all-out nuclear war turned vast swaths of the Earth into a radioactive hellscape. You are a Desert Ranger, a band of stalwart lawmen who are the only hope left in what was once the American southwest, and good people’s last defense against hunger, sickness, ravaging raiders, and mutants.

​ Now something more secretive and sinister is menacing humanity, and it’s your job to investigate. Recruit help and follow leads—the choices you make will shape the world around you. Choose wisely, your life and the lives of those you’re sworn to protect depend on it.

​ Features: ​

• Wasteland Remastered retains the spirit of the original game while updating visuals and audio.
• The original game’s physical storybook is available in-game, fully illustrated and with full voice over.
• An expanded musical score from the “Wasteland 1 – The Original Classic” release.
• Old bugs that have been around since Reagan was president have been fixed.
• Survive the apocalypse from the comfort of your couch with game controller support.
• Quality of life improvements that make the post-apocalypse a little friendlier.

You may also be interested in this article that introduces us to the game and its systems. A few sample paragraphs:

The Adventure Begins

When you first set out from Ranger Center, you’re afforded a squad of capable Rangers who have the attributes and skills that will offer you a chance at success in your campaign. That said, these Rangers have no special abilities or extreme skills that set them apart from anyone else you might come across in your travels. At this point, the decision to continue with this premade team, or to trade them out in favor of your own custom squad will be a determining factor in how difficult this unforgiving world will be.

If a premade Ranger is dismissed, you can recruit a fresh character, whose base stats can be re-rolled. If you’ve opted to create your own custom character, we encourage you to continue to roll the stats to see how they can be distributed into the different categories.

Each character is primarily defined by the attributes noted below, but how your characters are equipped and how you use each character will ultimately determine how well they perform. The breakdown of each character attribute is as follows:

• Strength (ST): The ability to overpower enemies or to lift, move, and break items. This is important in hand-to-hand combat and in physical tasks such as breaking down doors.
• Intelligence (IQ): How well a character thinks and solves problems. An important attribute as it determines which skills and how many of them a character can master. Characters start with skill points equal to their IQ. During the game you’ll definitely want to raise your IQ.
• Luck (LK): Lucky characters tend to find more things and avoid more damage than the unlucky ones. Luck also improves your odds in hand-to-hand combat.
• Speed (SP): How quickly you move, which helps you escape tight situations.
• Agility (AGL): How deftly you move. High agility enhances your acrobatic ability, so you can do things like dodge blows and jump on tables. The higher this value, the better you’ll perform in hand-to-hand combat.
• Dexterity (DEX): Ability to master fine movements like picking locks or aiming weapons. Dexterity is very important in combat, and extremely useful in mastering the “thiefly” arts.
• Charisma (CHR): This attribute lets you know how likable or persuasive a character is. Although it may seem like a trivial trait, it might well make the difference between life and death as you try to convince someone that you’re trustworthy. Charisma also affects how an NPC will react to you when you want to hire them or trade equipment.

As stated above, the total Intelligence that a character has determines what skills they will have access to. Because of this, you might reroll a character until you have a maximum (or as close to 18) IQ points before deciding what roles they’ll fulfill, and what skills they will be assigned. From the manual: “When you first create a character, this value is identical to IQ. The more skill points you have, the more skills you can learn. You can acquire more skill points during the game.”