Obsidian to Co-Develop Wasteland 2 if $2.1M is hit

Brother None

Brother None

This ghoul has seen it all
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InXile sent out a press release, announcing that if the Wasteland 2 fundraiser reaches $2.1 million, InXile will bring in Obsidian to co-develop.<blockquote>inXile to collaborate with Obsidian on the design of Wasteland 2!

Newport Beach, CA - March 30, 2012 - inXile entertainment confirmed today that they have reached an agreement with award-winning RPG developer Obsidian Entertainment to collaborate on the game design and writing for their Wasteland 2 project if the funding level reaches $2,100,000. Obsidian’s Chief Creative Officer Chris Avellone will be working directly with the design team at inXile to help bring the world of Wasteland together. Avellone stated, "Wasteland is one of my favorite RPGs of all time, and when Brian asked if I wanted to work on the sequel, I jumped at the chance. While I've worked on Fallout 2 and Fallout: New Vegas, getting the chance to work on the spiritual successor to the Fallout franchise is a honor." Brian Fargo added, “I have a history with the guys at Obsidian that dates back to the days of Interplay’s Black Isle studios. Together we created some of the greatest RPG’s of all time, from Fallout 1 & 2 to titles like Icewind Dale and Planescape: Torment. It is great that we now have a chance to reunite on a project like Wasteland 2.”

In addition to Chris Avellone's help, Obsidian will be lending the experience they have in the development of RPG games and tools to inXile. Fargo believes this collaboration will allow him to focus more energy on the game, “Obsidian has an incredible library of story, dialog and design tools that they have used to create hits like Neverwinter Nights 2, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II, and of course, Fallout: New Vegas. Regardless of the tech we use to develop the game, experience with these tools will help us efficiently design the game without wasting time and resources on the tools needed for development.”

Wasteland still has 17 days remaining until the Kickstarter funding ends. At this time the project has around 33,000 backers and has raised more than $1,650,000. In addition to the PC version, inXile has officially announced Mac OS X and Linux versions of Wasteland 2.

InXile is also announcing a solution for everyone who wants to back the project, but who live in a country where backing it on Kickstarter is just not possible. Fargo reports, “We want to let everyone know that we are now accepting PayPal pledges directly though the Wasteland web portal. Some of our biggest fans come from Germany and Eastern Europe, yet they have been unable to support us through the Kickstarter/Amazon pay system. We now have an alternative PayPal site set up for such gamers at Wasteland.inXile-entertainment.com.”

Details can be found on the Kickstarter site at:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/inxile/wasteland-2
or at:
http://wasteland.inxile-entertainment.com

About inXile Entertainment:
Founded by long-time industry veteran @BrianFargo in 2002, inXile Entertainment develops interactive entertainment software for all popular game systems, personal computers and wireless devices. The most current projects being: The Bard's Tale for IOS and Choplifter HD. For more information about inXile Entertainment visit www.inxile-entertainment.com.

About Obsidian Entertainment:
Obsidian Entertainment is an entertainment software development company passionately dedicated to making high quality, next generation games for Windows PC and console systems. Obsidian was founded in 2003 by five game development veterans who've produced, programmed, and/or designed award-winning role playing games for a variety of platforms over the last 20 years. The five founders are: Feargus Urquhart, Chris Parker, Darren Monahan, Chris Avellone and Chris Jones. Obsidian Entertainment's Web site is located at www.obsidian.net.

Fallout and Fallout: New Vegas are registered trademarks of Bethesda Softworks LLC. Wasteland is a registered trademark of inXile Entertainment. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners.</blockquote>
 
Well, I'm sold!

I really hope they meet the requirement, odds are looking good though.
 
Ok I'm officially excited. Just thinking about the possibilities here. Obsidian recently hired Tim Cain on full time, right?

This has to happen!
 
Beelzebud said:
If the gaming community can make this happen, my faith in humanity will never be in doubt again.
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I wouldn't go that far - but this is certainly some light at the end of the tunnel..

@op

Hoooray! :clap:
 
500 k$ in 17 days, I hope this announcement gets some more people up.
The rate the money came in went down quite a bit.
 
It always picks up again near the end. I was thinking they were going to be close to $2M regardless. Should hit this amount pretty easily.
 
Beelzebud said:
Ok I'm officially excited. Just thinking about the possibilities here. Obsidian recently hired Tim Cain on full time, right?

This has to happen!
Click to expand...

He's working on South Park at the moment though, although so is MCA, so they could possibly move to the project.
 
This is like, the best possible news.

The only thing is - I want MCA's own kickstarted RPG too, the spiritual successor to PS:T. Hopefully this doesn't mean he won't be able to do that until after Wasteland 2 is finished - I hope they'll be able to do two kickstarted products at the same time?
 
Me too, I'm considering raising my pledge, now.

But, is everyone sure that recruiting Obsidian will do good to an oldschool-style CRPG? Looking at the list of their games, makes me think of it, actually:

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords (2004) (Xbox, PC)
Neverwinter Nights 2 (2006) (PC, Mac OS X)
Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer (2007) (PC)
Neverwinter Nights 2: Storm of Zehir (2008) (PC)
Alpha Protocol (2010) (PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)
Fallout: New Vegas (2010)[8] (Windows, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)
Dungeon Siege III (2011)[15] (Windows, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)
South Park: The Game (2012)[16] (Windows, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)
Wheel of Time (in development)[17] (Windows, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)

Eliminate my doubts, please.
 
God is Dog backwards said:
The only thing is - I want MCA's own kickstarted RPG too, the spiritual successor to PS:T. Hopefully this doesn't mean he won't be able to do that until after Wasteland 2 is finished - I hope they'll be able to do two kickstarted products at the same time?
Click to expand...

Well, MCA was indeed spearheading that in Obsidian. So I would think it will be tabled for some time while they're helping InXile on this.

Who knows tho'.
 
Brother None said:
God is Dog backwards said:
The only thing is - I want MCA's own kickstarted RPG too, the spiritual successor to PS:T. Hopefully this doesn't mean he won't be able to do that until after Wasteland 2 is finished - I hope they'll be able to do two kickstarted products at the same time?
Click to expand...

Well, MCA was indeed spearheading that in Obsidian. So I would think it will be tabled for some time while they're helping InXile on this.

Who knows tho'.
Click to expand...

That's the downside for me, as I think I may have been anticipating MCA's RPG more than Wasteland 2. There may be a way around it, with collaborative working, but, yeah... MCA on Wasteland 2 at the expense of MCA's own kickstarted RPG - I actually think I'd prefer to keep him free for his own RPG!

I wonder how involved Obsidian would be, what role they'd have - I mean, $2.1m is not that much divided up between two studios... if it's people like MCA, JE Sawyer being 'consulted' from time to time, they may still be able to head up their own project... ? I doubt MCA would be the lead on W2.
 
Izual said:
I want my money back, then.
Click to expand...

If you've pledged via the kickstarter.com, there is still the "Manage your pledge" button.

But, care to explain why would you withdraw? :)
 
egalor said:
If you've pledged via the kickstarter.com, there is still the "Manage your pledge" button.

But, care to explain why would you withdraw? :)
Click to expand...

Presumably he's one of those people who feel Obsidian can only release buggy, unfinished products, even though they wouldn't do the full development here and have proven they can release an unspectacular but fairly bugfree game in DS3.
 
egalor said:
Me too, I'm considering raising my pledge, now.

But, is everyone sure that recruiting Obsidian will do good to an oldschool-style CRPG? Looking at the list of their games, makes me think of it, actually:

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords (2004) (Xbox, PC)
Neverwinter Nights 2 (2006) (PC, Mac OS X)
Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer (2007) (PC)
Neverwinter Nights 2: Storm of Zehir (2008) (PC)
Alpha Protocol (2010) (PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)
Fallout: New Vegas (2010)[8] (Windows, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)
Dungeon Siege III (2011)[15] (Windows, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)
South Park: The Game (2012)[16] (Windows, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)
Wheel of Time (in development)[17] (Windows, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)

Eliminate my doubts, please.
Click to expand...

Obsidian hasn't developed an old school isometric game because there hasn't really been any call for it from publishers and they can't just make money appear. But if you look at their work some clear trends emerge. First, they're interested in reactivity. Alpha Protocol, for instance, is probably one of the most reactive games ever made. It's right up there with Way of the Samurai. KOTOR 2 was one of the first games where your choices from the first game carried over, although save importing was kind of impossible with that tech so they had the player determine the outcome through dialogue.

They're also committed to having strong core themes and on using reactivity to make quest and plot resolution more flexible. Just look at something like Beyond the Beef from New Vegas.

I know that doesn't say much about their "old school" chops, even though a lot of their staff got their start doing 2D Isometric RPGs (Avellone on FO2, Sawyer on Icewind Dale, etc, etc). Plus, for what it's worth, Storm of Zehir was conceived of and designed as a throwback to the Gold Box games, and it doesn't get much more old school than that.

God is Dog backwards said:
I wonder how involved Obsidian would be, what role they'd have - I mean, $2.1m is not that much divided up between two studios... if it's people like MCA, JE Sawyer being 'consulted' from time to time, they may still be able to head up their own project... ? I doubt MCA would be the lead on W2.
Click to expand...
Well, MCA would probably be more involved than just checking in every once in a while. But the biggest contribution from Obsidian would probably be tech, not personnel. Setting aside Onyx (although hopefully W2 will use it. It's apparently remarkably stable and well optimized) it's like Fargo says. Obsidian's got a lot of design and workflow tools designed specifically for RPGs that will help streamline development. Especially since inXile hasn't made an RPG in years.
 
Thanks, DemonNick, sounds feasible.

Brother None said:
egalor said:
If you've pledged via the kickstarter.com, there is still the "Manage your pledge" button.

But, care to explain why would you withdraw? :)
Click to expand...

Presumably he's one of those people who feel Obsidian can only release buggy, unfinished products, even though they wouldn't do the full development here and have proven they can release an unspectacular but fairly bugfree game in DS3.
Click to expand...

Weren't it for FNV, I would not have cared a rat's butt on Obsidian participation, actually. FNV is their first game that I really enjoyed without any allowances for the general troubles of contemporary game making. And I really did not notice any somewhat serious bugs :)
 
egalor said:
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords (2004) (Xbox, PC) - Superior game to KOTOR in every way except the publisher rushed it to release so it had no ending

Neverwinter Nights 2 (2006) (PC, Mac OS X) - Superior game to NWN by Bioware

Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer (2007) (PC) - MOTB is one of the best single-player experiences you can have on PC. Seriously. Get it during a Steam sale or something. You'll thank me later. It is a sequel to the single player content of NWN2 though so you should play through NWN2 first.

Neverwinter Nights 2: Storm of Zehir (2008) (PC) - have not played yet, unfortunately

Alpha Protocol (2010) (PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3) - Somewhat buggy game but otherwise brilliant use of Choice and Consequence you will ever seen in any game ever. They were really ambitious on this project and it shows.

Fallout: New Vegas (2010)[8] (Windows, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3) - haven't played yet but all the Fallout fans I know say it's better than Fallout 3. It's buggy, but that's because they used Bethesda's horrible engine to make it. Fallout 3 wasn't bugfree either.

Dungeon Siege III (2011)[15] (Windows, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3) - Decent game and completely bug-free. They used their own proprietary Onyx Engine for it. Perhaps if they do join the Wasteland project, they'll be using Onyx to make the game.

South Park: The Game (2012)[16] (Windows, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3) - Not out yet. Using their Onyx Engine.

Wheel of Time (in development)[17] (Windows, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3) - Probably in development hell at this point. Project was announced like 5 years ago.

Eliminate my doubts, please.
Click to expand...

Doubts hopefully eliminated.
 
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