The Kickstarter for Wasteland 2, the sequel to 1988’s granddaddy of all post-apocalyptic RPGs Wasteland, has more that surpassed its original goal of $900K with a whopping $1.5 million pledged so far. With two weeks to go it looks like yet another successful Kickstarter is going to have to explain what they are going to do with all that extra cash. Luckily Wasteland 2’s developers, inXile Entertainment, already have some unique ideas, and not strictly gameplay ideas either.
First off Brian Fargo, CEO of inXile Entertainment and Wasteland 2 producer, wants you to know that Wasteland 2 is exactly when you would expect, “a turn-based top-down role playing game.” The video on their Kickstarter page even pokes fun at the idea of the game being anything but what fans of the original expect it to be; in an interview with a fake publisher he asks them if they would be making Wasteland 2 a first person shooter while Fargo looks at him as if he is crazy. They know that a sequel to a game that was made in 1988 speaks to a very small audience, and that’s why they went to Kickstarter for help. Fargo even admits that without something like Kickstarter, Wasteland 2 would probably never get made.
Well it is getting made, and not only that, but they have raised enough to begin expanding on certain areas of the game. First and foremost it will now also be available on Mac and Linux which obviously opens them up to a larger market, potentially increasing the amount of people who will not only play the game, but who also pledge to the Kickstarter as well. As for the rest of the cash, well it looks like most of it is going into writers and music to make the game world more robust, as well as hiring more scripters in order to “add even more depth of consequence to the world.”
inXile Entertainment isn’t just satisfied with making their game better, which, to be honest, is all that is being asked of them. They have also decided to get involved in something called Kicking it Foward, agreeing to donate 5% of Wasteland 2’s profits back into other Kickstarter projects. Acknowledging how important Kickstarter is to them, they’ve decided to put their money where there mouth is to not only support other games, but to support Kickstarter and the rapidly growing public funding movement.
