Wasteland 2 - MCA's Thoughts and More

Chris Avellone has posted his own thoughts about the idea of a Kickstartered Wasteland 2 on his Obsidian blog:

In short, I’d kill for another Wasteland.

Not just because it was a post-apocalyptic RPG, but because it did so much that was refreshingly new with conventional tech, something that Fallout did as well, and there’s a big lesson to be learned there.

I’m a big fan of using non-video-card-and-non-engine-innovations to drive development, and sometimes it only requires stepping back a second and taking a fresh look at the game to pull it off – as an example, my favorite example of non-tech innovation is low-INT dialogue options in Fallout. Brilliant. Wasteland did the exact same thing, except with skill progression and location setting – it allowed your character to grow in new ways, and it took you to places in its low-rez world that I haven’t seen rivaled or done half as well in contemporary games.

No doubt he'll also be interested in terms of any possible Obsidian project, as well.
While we're at it, IGN has a feature called Fallout's Forgotten Ancestor:

As primitive as this top-down affair looks nearly a quarter of a century down the line, at the time it was the Mad Max-meets-The Terminator game of my dreams. Next to the side-scrolling platformers and shooters that littered the scene, Wasteland was comfortably one of the most ambitious titles around. By building on the groundbreaking Bard's Tale titles in spectacular style, Interplay constructed a persistent openworld environment that gave the game a credible sense of place that few others could match.

More information.

Well, I don't think there will be any kind of innovation in this. At best will be a clone.
Hope I'm wrong

Obsidian should team up with inXile for this. I would probably be rather more inclined to throw money at the project if this was true.. even though it's essentially impossible.

I don't really want this to be innovative - I want a modern recreation with essentially the same gameplay.

Actually, I never played the first one.

Was it like Fallout - beyond just the setting?

It was wildly different. Both of them are open world RPGs, but that's as far as it goes. It's like Reckoning and Skyrim.

Wasteland combat interface is similar to the old Bards Tale combat interface.
You wander around in top-down-view.

"Was it like Fallout - beyond just the setting? "

Well, they're also both post-apocalyptic, they both have dark senses of humor, and they both share certain thematic elements because Fallout was essentially a spiritual sequel.

However, Fallout focuses on one character, while Wasteland focuses on a party. Also, as noted above, Wasteland has a Bard's Tale-type battle system, which is rather different. Fallout also has a lot more RP options and such, although most of the difference there is likely generational.

Honestly, I hope Wasteland 2 takes at least some inspiration from Fallout. A lot of the people clamoring for a Wasteland sequel are really just asking for a new Fallout similar to the first two.

I strongly agree with Dhruin and disagree with borcanu. Wasteland was on par with MM2 as an all-time favorite and it was a toss-up for the remake

What I most remember about Wasteland (which is still on my HD in my Dosbox folder) was the shock to my system after playing fantasy based games that if a party member died there was NO resurrection; they were gone forever unless you did a reload!!

Thanks for the info guys. It does look a LOT like Bard's Tale in the screenshots

Just remake the original and you can't go wrong. I agree, Wasteland, Might and Magic 2, and Dark Heart of Uukrul are my favorite RPG's of all time. One great thing about being old is we got to play great games when they first came out.