Wasteland 3 Crowdfunding to begin October 5th

Wasteland 2 was released two years ago after a massively successful Kickstarter campaign that raised far more than the developer, inXile Entertainment, could have ever asked. They then returned the favor by releasing a game that was far better than anyone could have asked, and people were pretty happy about that. Now, you might be equally charmed to hear that the same studio will now be working on a third installment of the series... and less charmed to hear that they'll once again be returning to crowdfunding to get it off the ground.

They'll be launching a new campaign on the 'transparent' crowdfunding website, Fig, come October 5th. An unsurprising change of venue, given that inXile studio boss Brian Fargo sits on the Fig advisory board. Small conflict of interest there, but it's not as if Fig ever directly funds these projects to begin with, so I doubt it will be an actual issue.

The next installment will once again put you in command of a team of Desert Rangers, this time exploring and conquering the arctic wastes of post-apocalyptic Colorado. What makes it interesting is that the game has asynchronous multiplayer: you can join another person's game and command a different team of Rangers, and you're allies, in theory. But they can mess with your world in unexpected ways:

"Let's say that you're sleeping and I go on a mission where there's a sickness among some cattle. I decide the resolve it by killing them all. You wake up and you're notified that mission is complete. But when you get back to the game there's a radio call. The town? They're kind of pissed about that. They want money for those cattle. You can convince your friend to pay up, or you could pay it yourself. You could even refuse to pay entirely and live with the consequences."

Of course, if you find that unforgivable, you can always de-synch your games and go back to a timeline when your friend doesn't screw the pooch.

Now, personally, I'm a bit iffy on this whole prospect, given that the whole deal with Crowdfunding is that you're supposed to do it once, get the funding for your first game, then use the money you earn in that venture to work on future games. I can understand why the prospect of returning to crowdfunding would be appealing to some, especially if they have a track record and an almost-guaranteed fundraising opportunity, but... still, it rubs me the wrong way.

But a new Wasteland is certainly cool.