Wasteland 3 News

inXile Entertainment рассказала об успехах Wasteland 3 и представила двухминутную атмосферную короткометражку

Выпущенная в конце августа этого года постапокалиптическая игра Wasteland 3 была очень тепло принята как профильной прессой, так и рядовыми геймерами. А теперь стало известно, что пошаговая изометрическая RPG разошлась тиражом более миллиона копий.

Wasteland 3 should waste a lot less of your time in loading screens now

Long loading screens are a major bummer, let's face it, and nobody wants to sit there drumming their fingers on their desk after they've just gotten geared up to wipe out a bloodthirsty cult of Reagan-worshippers in the icy mountains of Wasteland 3. Fortunately, the RPG game has a new patch out that addresses the game's long loading times, cutting them by up to 60% on PC.

On both Steam and GOG, you can download Wasteland 3 patch 1.1.2 now, which inXile has jokingly titled 'Save Scummers Delight." The reduced load times were a pretty significant task: inXile says its engineers rewrote the game's process for level loading, and in testing environments it's led to 38 seconds of loading cut down to just 13.

The developer notes that "your hardware, save data, and which level you're loading into can all impact load times" and thus "your mileage may of course vary." You'll notice, too, that auto-saving won't happen as part of the initial load-in of the level, but instead will take place as a separate concurrent process - which may mean you'll load into a scene before the auto-save has completed. As long as you don't close Wasteland 3 while the little Ranger star badge is spinning, you'll be okay.

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Patch 1.1.2 "Save Scummers Delight" Now Live

Our continued thanks to those playing and enjoying Wasteland 3, and for those of you who have continued to report issues, and bring our attention to solutions and reproduction steps. It's been heartening to see so many of you looking to help us continue to improve the experience, and we're dedicated to doing just that for the foreseeable future.

This update has some big changes, including the oft-requested improvements to load times, as well as fixes for some progression blockers, and more. Reducing the load times was a big undertaking to essentially rewrite how our level load procedure works, but we think you'll appreciate the result—especially if love to save and reload to get that perfect outcome (we won't tell).

Patch 1.1.2 is now live! Please note that for cross-platform co-op on PC, both the Host and Client will need to have matching versions.

[h2]Highlights[/h2]

Do you hate long load times? We hate long load times. Our engineers changed how the game loads levels, reducing load times by up to 60% on PC and 25% on console.
- As one example, on our PC test hardware a 38 second load time was reduced to 13 seconds.
Fixed an issue where combat could become unresponsive with use of the Chain Ambush Perk for sniper rifles.
Resolved several progression blocking issues in Yuma County Speedway.
Enemies are now much less invisible after use of Precision Strike.

[h2]Performance & Stability[/h2]

Significantly changed how levels load, resulting in up to 60% faster load speeds across the game on PC, and on average 25% faster for consoles.
- Note: your hardware, save data, and which level you’re loading into can all impact load times. Your mileage may of course vary.
- As part of this change, auto-saves will no longer occur as a part of the level load, and instead happen concurrently. This can lead to situations where you’ve loaded into the next scene but an auto-save is still in-progress. Don’t close the game while the Ranger star is spinning.
Major Prasad will no longer crash your game if you exit while she’s still talking.
Additional stability and performance improvements for consoles that were too technical for the person writing these patch notes to understand and explain easily. It’s good stuff though. All good stuff.
- We’ll be continuing to target and resolve specific stability issues as necessary.

[h2]Co-op[/h2]

Players can no longer attack companions that are in the process of being recruited by the other player, in case your partner likes to troll.
Fixed an issue where the Guest client could become unresponsive when talking with Hope Emerson and choosing to side with Del Hackett and her people.
Improved stability while in the Hire Companion screen.
Players can now use the keyboard in the lobby screen to choose game type, options, invite player, and ready up.
Enabled UI Narration in the Direct Connection interface and for multiplayer game messages sent through chat.
Fixed an issue with voice chat text-to-speech and speech-to-text.
[Microsoft Store] Resolved an issue where guests couldn’t rejoin a lobby they’d just left.

[h2]Quests & Gameplay[/h2]

Resolved an issue where quirks could become unselectable during character creation.
Fixed a potential blocker with Medical Marvel not allowing revival without use of a Nitro Spike.
Resolved a rare issue that would block you from speaking to a companion.
The door in Yuma County Speedway leading to Liberty is now unbreakable as intended.

[h2]Misc.[/h2]

Fixed minor graphical issue with the radio.
Some cinematic characters have been given microdermabrasion treatments and now have better looking skin.
Skill levels for recruitable characters now display properly in all cases.
Mission status should no longer display incorrectly after quest completion or updates.
Resolved issue where the spinning Ranger Star would permanently stay on screen after saving the game.

Microsoft: 2020 год выдался рекордным для Xbox Game Studios, много новых игр в разработке

Компания Microsoft поделилась в блоге Xbox Wire статистикой за 2020 год по играм от внутреннего подразделения Xbox Game Studios:

Wasteland devs have not one, but two "wonderful new RPGs" in the works

Brian Fargo - CEO of Wasteland 3 developer InXile Entertainment - took to Twitter over the course of the weekend to confirm the studio is working on two "wonderful new RPGs". He was responding to a fan who had contacted him via the social media platform, thanking him for Wasteland 3.

These two RPG games could be new entries in InXile's impressive portfolio. It may be too soon for a new Wasteland game, since the last one came out this year and was "brilliantly bloody" according to our Wasteland 3 review. But a new Torment game or the fifth Bard's Tale are not outside the realms of possibility.

Here's the thing though: the timing of Brian Fargo's tweets is rather intriguing. Both posts come days after Bethesda's acquisition by Microsoft, just as people have begun to wonder about the future of Fallout. We don't know the exact details of the deal that was made; perhaps Bethesda still wants to handle development of future Fallout games in-house. However, given the dev's background with some of the original Fallout titles, perhaps one or both of these mystery RPGs could tie in to the long-running series in some way - after all, stranger things have happened in the past.

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