Wasteland 2, the Kickstarter sequel to the 1988 post-apocalyptic RPG Wasteland, has now got something more to show than just promises and visual design documents.
The very first screenshot of the highly anticipated project has finally hit the interwebs from creator Brian Fargo’s on the game’s Kickstarter page. Wasteland 2 debuted on Kickstarter back in April this year with a funding goal of $900,000. After the Kickstarter had ended, they had just over $3 million raised; allowing for the implementation of extra features, quests and characters beyond what their mandatory funding amount would allow.
The screenshot, which you can see at the bottom of this article, has the primary function of giving us a glance at the basic look of the game running under the popular Unity engine and nothing else. Clearly tagged “Progress Screenshot”, the screenie shows off a desert petrol station setting, with what looks to be a party of five facing off against a giant mechanised scorpion, positioned on the other side of a river of toxic liquid.
Being an investor in this project both emotionally and financially (I threw a few bucks down on the Kickstarter), I have to say that this first screenshot gets me excited about what is to come. Sure, it looks like there is too much saturation and a number of effects are missing, but again, the main function of putting this screenshot out there is to illustrate how developers inXile are getting up to speed with the Unity engine that they have employed for the game.
“Releasing a screen shot this early in the process is a new concept for me as we typically want to hone in every element before we show it,” said Fargo.
“But based on the requests and our desire for fan input, we are doing so to solicit feedback on the basic look. Please keep in mind that we have not put in the particle effects and post-processing which will have a dramatic effect on the scene, and this represents just one of the various environments for Wasteland 2 so expect to see other quite different locales. Also, this particular camera angle is on the low end of a range that the player can adjust upwards to a much more top-down view, for those who prefer that style during game play.”
So there you have it, the first of what will hopefully be many tasty media morsels to come from the game before it’s eventual October 2013 release.
Wastleland 2 is due to release sometime in October next year for PC, Mac and Linux platforms.
Currently it looks like shit. No attention to detail, no real idea od art design, borrowed artistry (looks like from Fallout 1′s idea of wasteland instead of the other way round).
Character models are ill presented for a game funded with 3M dollars. Other games funded on Kickstarter have much better graphics with LESS money. Should I be worried about investing in this game? My opinion, is YES.
get your act together Mr. Fargo, this is no what I am paying you for.
I think you need to take a step back and see the screenshot for what it is.
The screenshot, as I pointed out, was a proof of concept for the engine and nothing more.
Quite literally no additional effects, shaders or anything else have been added. Until we see something in-game when the game is a little further in development than the engine-testing phase (not to mention something that shows a wider variety of artistic assets), I think it’s a little churlish to kick the shit out of it at this point.