WASTELAND 3 Review for Steam

The third installment of the series, Wasteland 3 is one of the best tactical turn-based RPGs I played in a while, developed and published by inXile Entertainment last August. Wasteland 3 is still getting small fixes but the main campaign is playable. You play as a group of people named Rangers, who are the “morally good” people in the game world compared to other groups. You have to leave your main base after being destroyed and move to Colorado to start again. On the way, you get ambushed. You select a duo to start the story who will be the only survivors of the attack. After a short tutorial section, you settle in your base and start exploring the world.

There are so many builds you can choose for your characters as the combat is not a simple gun fight. Each build allows the character to have new ways to interact with the world and have a unique way to fight. Almost every type of weapon has its weaknesses and strengths. While it was incredibly difficult to damage robots with automatic rifles, energy weapons can do immensely more damage than them. This type of variety forced me to have various types of characters in my party where none of the characters was overpowered than the other. This was also reflected on the level design.

At the beginning, you may not have a well rounded party, but the game allows you to use various approaches to solve every problem. Whether it is lockpicking to allow your melee unit to flank the enemy lines at the beginning of the combat, or disabling robots with your tech guy to advance in combat, there is always a non-brute way to solve problems. I can’t say they were the best starting characters, but I chose William & Li-Tseng while playing at Ranger difficulty.

After finishing the tutorial, I got the hang of the game since it really pushed me to use consumables I found before. Even the short combats are not mundane since there are special perks that allow you to use a cool skill with your weapon. For instance, Sniper Rifles’ special skill is a special targeting like Fallout’s VATS system but more strategically adjusted to fit the gameplay. The game mechanics and the possible interactables in each combat provide a solid core experience in the game.

Almost each combat requires you to be very strategic. I don’t remember successfully completing one in the first try. You have to carefully analyze what each enemy can do and plan accordingly. What is unique about the combat system is that all of your party members go at the same “turn” while the enemies do the same. Because of that, the combat is so much different than a game like Divinity Original Sin 2. It can be incredibly punishing for a party member to leave them out in the open. Strategy aside, the combat itself is very satisfying to play out. They are not incredibly long or short, but they vary depending on the importance of the combat.

For someone who has not played the previous installments, the story was not the most compelling side of the game; Although, it was easy to understand the setting and characters with the introduction given to the players. If you are into the American history and a dystopian version of it, then Wasteland 3 will definitely have more to offer to you. The story might be well-set and the role-playing within the narrative is very enjoyable, however, rangers in your group are like blank pieces of paper. The premade duo’s you choose at the beginning of the game interact with each other like in DA:O but other than that they don’t have much depth. 

Each side mission was also well crafted. The characters were unique and fit the game world perfectly. Each time it gave more depth to the different layers of the world. The current location is usually shaped by the NPCs and interactions with them explain both the situation in the current location and in the rest of the game world. When NPCs offered side missions I was so curious I loaded the game to the previous save file to see what would happen if I chose another option. The choices were always meaningful and had a unique sense of humor. I think one of the things that made the backtracking experience fun was the good sound and animation of killing an enemy. I can’t pinpoint why but it was weirdly satisfying. The music in Wasteland 3 was also great for a strategy game, especially the last combat at the end of the tutorial.

Nowadays, I believe optimization in games is one of the most important aspects of games. Considering how badly Dragon Age: Inquisition was optimized for PC, Wasteland 3 had no issues like that. Loading screens and saving/loading were so smooth that it did not really interrupt the gameplay. I played the single player campaign and did not come across any bugs or crashes. In the forums, I read that some players had issues with the co-op mode and they were right with their complaints. The game developers are working hard to come up with fixes, and I believe there won’t be any issues related to that soon. 

Wasteland 3 was one of the best RPGs I played and without a doubt will get better as the developers do the final touches to the game. It is already a great game but some features have issues that can not be unseen. After finishing the story, it doesn’t provide much replayability but the game itself is already long enough to compensate for that. It is easily a 9/10 game.

Check Out the Wasteland 3 Trailer:

Wasteland 3 is available for Windows PC, Mac, and Linux via Steam.

For more information, please visit: https://www.inxile-entertainment.com/wasteland3

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