“By gamers, for gamers” Interplay’s motto – a video game company founded by Brian Fargo, who brought us classics like Planescape: Torment, and of course the lauded Fallout series.

Wasteland, the George Washington of the Fallout series. Actually it’s more like Fallout was the spiritual successor of Wasteland. And I’m not talking about Fallout 3 and New Vegas – those are laughable mutations compared to what Fallout 1 & 2 brought us. Wasteland was THE sandbox game before that term was even used. It existed in an era when games with creativity could thrive and not be shadowed and forgotten because they didn’t sell 2 million copies the first month they’re out.

Why is this all relevant? Because Brian Fargo’s new development studio, inXile Entertainment, is going to bring us Wasteland 2! And this will truly be a game by gamers, for gamers. For starters, a handful of talent from the original Fallout team will be working on Wasteland2. Plus this will be a project free of big corporate publishers (oh how I wish EA never bought Bioware, but that’s another story), they are getting their funding through Kickstarter. They’ve actually already met their budget and will be officially funded on April 17, but if you want to get in on the ground floor, there’s still time to check it out.  Besides, the more money they get, the more they can throw into the production of the game and the better it will be.

Maybe you’ve never played the original Fallout games. Maybe you’re first foray into the Fallout universe was Fallout 3. In which case, I feel bad for you. You like Fallout 3 you say, and can’t imagine it not being a first person shooter, and hated all the “useless” dialog in the game? Well then you might as well just forget you read any of this and go on with your life. But if you really want to experience a true open world classic RPG made by the masters of the craft, then do yourself a favor and check out the game.

I got this email update from them, plus you can just find it on their kickstarter page, and rather than paraphrasing it, I’ll just copy and paste the whole thing here:
All of the money we raise through Kickstarter is being spent on making the game. Most of the cost of development is in paying for the team to create the game. There will be a team of engine programmers, game-play programmers, UI engineers, character artists, environment artists, animators, effects artists, UI Artists, sound designers, composers, writers, game designers, systems designers, level scripters, and testers. Not to mention all the interns it will take to handle the mailing out of the physical goods. It is simple math that the bigger this budget gets, the more jobs it will create. The bigger the team, the deeper and bigger the game gets. If you want a deeper and larger game, and we think that you do, you want us to raise as much money as possible to spend on the game.
Did I just hear all 43,000+ of you say ‘How can we help?’

I am glad you asked!!

One thing you will notice in that list of potential jobs above is that nowhere in that list do you see ‘Marketing Lady’ or ‘PR Guy’. That is because we don’t have these positions, nor do we plan to hire them. We want to spend the money on the game, and only the game.
This is where you come in…
All 43,000+ of you are our marketing and PR team. We need your help to get the word out that the Kickstarter countdown is on.
• Post to your Facebook pages with links back to the Kickstarter.
• Follow @BrianFargo on twitter and retweet my Wasteland related tweets.
• Post it to forums where you think it is relevant.
• Send emails out to everyone you know.
• Go to our website and put our Doomsday countdown clock on your website.
• Get a friend or family member to buy in.
• Shout it from the rooftop.
• Do some early shopping for Christmas 2013!
If every person who has pledged manages to get one more person to buy in for $15, we will increase the budget by over $600,000. You can help the project in very tangible ways by helping us get the word out.
Lastly, I am very excited to release the first official piece of Wasteland 2 concept art. We asked the very talented Andree Wallin to help us establish the look and feel of the Desert Rangers. I think this image speaks for itself…

Hope you enjoy it,

Brian

Wasteland 2 on Kickstarter

inXile Entertainment official homepage