InXile Entertainment has been carving out a successful niche making old-school isometric cRPGs. Their success is tied largely to crowdfunding platform Kickstarter, where they’ve raised millions of dollars to fund Wasteland 2 in 2012, Torment: Tides of Numenera in 2013, and Bard’s Tale IV in 2015.
They are returning to the crowdfunding well next week to begin a campaign for Wasteland 3 – but this time they’re using Fig.
Fig was founded last year by several game industry and Kickstarter veterans. The major difference is that Fig users can choose to become actual investors in the games, creating a financial investment for vetted supporters.
Fig board member Tim Schafer (Double Fine CEO) launched Fig’s first game Psychonauts 2 last year, raising nearly $4 million. InXile Entertainment CEO Brian Fargo is also a board member.
Wasteland 3 will shift the focus from the deserts of Arizona and Southern California to the snowy regions of Colorado. The biggest change is the addition of cooperative multiplayer, a curious change as many cRPG fans are solely interested in single-player stories.
Fellow cRPG crowdfunders Larian Studios have had success bringing multiplayer into their Divinity: Original Sin titles. Wasteland 3’s multiplayer will allow players to work together in missions as well as split up – and even play in the same game when their friends aren’t around.
Wasteland 2 shipped in 2014 with an 81 metacritic score, and was largely successful with critics and fans. An expanded Director’s Cut edition was released last year that included an engine upgrade, additional voice-overs, and lots of new features. It was released as a free update to the base game on PC, and as a retail release on consoles.
Torment: Tides of Numenera has been in Steam Early Access beta for most of this year, with a planned release in early 2017 (and coming to PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.) In 2015, InXile Entertainment opened a second studio in Louisiana to work on Bard’s Tale IV.
The crowdfunding campaign for Wasteland 3 begins October 5 and will seek $2.75 million, with a planned release for PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.
