It's (almost) finally here. The Wasteland 2 beta is now available to backers of inXile's hugely successful Kickstarter campaign. Anyone who pledged to their Kickstarter at a tier of $55 or more has access to the beta, so you can log in to the Ranger Center account and get a Steam key for the Wasteland 2 beta, downloading and playing the game immediately. Non-backers can log in to Steam on Friday and purchase the beta when it's offered to the public via Steam Early Access.
Wasteland 2 is of course the sequel to the classic Wasteland, a predecessor to Fallout and other post-apocalyptic RPGs. It was recently released on GOG.com, free for backers to brush up on the game's history. The 1988 classic still holds up remarkably well (even if the graphics and interface haven't), mostly due to how innovative it was at the time. It was one of the first games to ever offer a player significant consequences for their actions. You'd have to fight not only against the mutants and various beasties in the desert but against radiation sickness and hunger. It really was bleak and dark and darkly funny, setting a precedent for all post-apocalyptic games to come. The chance of a worthy follow-up allowed Wasteland 2 to become one of the first massive success stories on Kickstarter last April, raising $2,933,252 pledged of $900,000 goal, plus more from paypal donations.
The Fallout series (get them for free today!) rightfully became the face of post-apocalyptic RPGs in the years after Wasteland but now the sequel is looking to gain some ground back. inXile has been doing a terrific job of keeping backers updated on the progress of the game although this beta isn't nearly the final version. The Wasteland 2 beta consists of the first four major areas of the game along with character creation, world map travel, and random encounters, and more areas of the game will be added in the future.
Beta backers and Steam early access gamers will get exactly the same content, but there's a whole list of things missing and/or possibly broken in the game right now. Biggest of all is that it doesn't include all of the maps for a location in Arizona, which will make that section of the game feel more linear. The voice acting isn't finalized and may change before release, a number of skills simply aren't implemented in the game (my Combat Shooting!), the UI isn't finished, there's no fog of war, the SFX in combat isn't done- the list goes on. But the beta will afford you a good idea of what they're going for, and hopefully with all of this knowledge you'll use it to provide feedback to the developers and help improve the final product that much more.
"We've all been pouring our heart and soul into Wasteland 2, and I hope it shows," says Brian Fargo, head of inXile. "I'll never forget the elation from those first two days of our Kickstarter campaign and how happy I was to get this chance. Now, after the long journey, I am filled with excitement and nervousness. Thanks again for your support, have fun, and let's work together to make a classic."
