Wasteland 2 is a turn-based, CRPG from the developers over at inXile Entertainment, the same team behind The Bard’s Tale and Hunted: The Demon’s Forge but does have the producer of the classic Fallout titles under their belt. This post-apocalyptic CRPG takes place in a desolate wasteland that has you constantly switching out items and strategies for the ideal form of play and was originally released on the 19th September 2014 as a sequel to the original Wasteland and is currently available on PC, PS4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch.
How to Download Wasteland 2
To get your copy of Wasteland 2 simply click on the Download button placed at the end of the review. You can get the game either from Steam or GOG.com. The definite version of the game is called Wasteland 2: Director’s Cut.
The Game Review
The plot takes place in an alternate historical timeline: a nuclear war has erupted between the USA and the Soviet Union, resulting in a complete cataclysm of the world, leaving it as nothing more than a wasteland for the player to roam in and explore. With the game starting off in 2102, you are and your party of 4 is expected to go out into the wastes to find out who exactly killed a ranger by the name of Ace. As the plot starts to deepen, it no longer carries on like a murder mystery and something deeper is afoot, without spoiling too much.
With your squad of four, you’re set to explore the wastes of Wasteland 2. As you go around exploring the world, you’re going to come across different interactable and lootable objects. Interacting with objects can make certain changes to the world and lootable objects will obviously have some sort of loot waiting for you inside them.
That loot can then be used in a variety of ways, such as being applied to one of your 4 teammates as an item or used as a weapon, depending on what the loot is used for. Other than exploring, there are several different side objectives for the player to take on to gain a little more insight into the world of Wasteland 2, all the while gaining some much-needed experience for their party.
Other than the heavy focus on exploration, Wasteland 2 takes a slightly different approach to the CRPG nature of turn-based combat. Instead, when encountering some enemies, the world will turn into a sort of a grid-based motif and then combat will start, with each character on the board taking it in turns to take their actions.
Each character – good or bad – has their own set of action points that they have access to each turn. With these action points, they can choose to move, attack, or use one of their hot-bar options. Once they’ve run out of action points or don’t wish to do anything else, you can press the end turn button and pass the turn onto the next character who has priority.
Attacking isn’t perfect, though, as just in something like X-COM, there’s a percentage chance to either hit or miss each attack. Once an enemy has been defeated, the party will gain some experience and that will go towards a level-up, allowing them to be upgraded overall and become stronger.
Some of the easiest comparisons for this game would have to be X-Com and Fallout, with the latter being the result of the producer of the original Fallout titles working on this one. A lot of the gameplay similarities are here and make for quite the engaging CRPG.
Anyone looking for a new turn-based CRPG to sink their teeth into is going to really enjoy what Wasteland 2 has to offer, especially if you enjoyed the classic Fallout games or the original Wasteland.
