Wasteland 3 - Review @ Game Rant

Game Rant reviewed Wasteland 3:

Wasteland 3 Review

InXile Entertainment's Wasteland 3 is an excellent turn-based RPG that has the right amount of strategy, heavy choices, and absurdity.

Wasteland 3 sees the Arizona Rangers leave their home behind on a desperate mission into the nuclear winter of Colorado, where right from the get-go, players are thrust into a game filled with important decisions, fights for survival, and a variety of tactical scenarios. With a strong backing from its Kickstarter, inXile Entertainment manages to deliver perhaps the best game in the franchise.

The overarching structure of the game is straightforward: in order to get help for Arizona, players are tasked with working with a questionable authoritarian figure in capturing his three children. These three big goals are the driving force behind much of Wasteland 3, but it's what fills the world that gives it a unique charm.

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Overall, Wasteland 3 is an easy recommendation for RPG fans. It's a wild ride from start to finish - one that is well worth every hour and playthrough spent on it. Prior to launch, one developer stated that Wasteland 3 was "epic in size", but experiencing it first-hand proves that this is an understatement, that the game has much more to offer players than first glance, and that the game is worth playing, time and again.

Score: 4.5/5

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Prior to launch, one developer stated that Wasteland 3 was "epic in size", but experiencing it first-hand proves that this is an understatement, that the game has much more to offer players than first glance, and that the game is worth playing, time and again.

Lies I finished the game in 40 hrs and the overland map doesn't have many locations. I've said it before Wasteland 2 was the bigger game. Yes my subjective opinion.

Originally Posted by Couchpotato
I finished the game in 40 hrs

Did it live up to your expectations?

Hmm - I'm 49 hours in the game and just visited the first City and the Bizarre …
I replayed 6 hours, so I have 43 hours yet.

Originally Posted by Pongo
Did it live up to your expectations?

Somewhat it's improved over Wasteland 2 but bugs and memory leaks were a constant problem. I had a few crashes as well. The latest patches fix some of them.

Back to the load time problems it seems most Unity RPGs all have the same problem. I wonder if it has to do with how the engine loads assets for the next area?

Originally Posted by HiddenX
Hmm - I'm 49 hours in the game and just visited the first City and the Bizarre …
I replayed 6 hours, so I have 43 hours yet.

I played on the easiest setting just for the story. I dind't want to waste hours in TB combat. As everyone already knows I'm not a big fan of TB combat in RPGs.

Also it only has two large cities, one ski resort, and a bunch of other smaller locations. The second city isn't even a big city just two hubs. So yeah not a huge playground.

Don't get wrong whats there is enjoyable but with a bigger budget I expected bigger cities, and more locations. Heck ATOM RPG with a smaller budget did it better.

I think that explains it, I'm playing on the second hardest setting and I have to visit a doctor now and then

Just completed WL3 today. I think a lot of the reviews oversold it for me. It's definitely an improvement over WL2 in a lot of things and I had a good time but the whole thing felt too consolised and it was waaaay too easy, even on Ranger mode. Everything felt doable in a single playthrough itself (minus the branching paths) The vehicle sections felt very gimmicky and the technical side of things is a mess. I think Original Sin 2 and Disco Elysium ruined RPGs for me. But I feel like I might be a little too hard on the game? Idk. Writing a review tomorrow.

Originally Posted by Couchpotato
I played on the easiest setting just for the story. I dind't want to waste hours in TB combat. As everyone already knows I'm not a big fan of TB combat in RPGs.

Also it only has two large cities, one ski resort, and a bunch of other smaller locations. The second city isn't even a big city just two hubs. So yeah not a huge playground.

Don't get wrong whats there is enjoyable but with a bigger budget I expected bigger cities, and more locations. Heck ATOM RPG with a smaller budget did it better.

This is exactly how I feel. But on the other hand, loved the length. Kinda burned out on 100 hr games these days.

I don't know how long the game will end up being for me. It doesn't keep track of hours on Xbox, I don't think, and I'm not close to done yet. But I can say that I don't at all mind not having huge hub areas. I like varied, more focused areas. Denver, for example, is the aiport and the government building, but there's a lot to see and do in each, imo. The Machine Commune in particular I really enjoyed.

Originally Posted by Couchpotato
I played on the easiest setting just for the story. I dind't want to waste hours in TB combat. As everyone already knows I'm not a big fan of TB combat in RPGs.

Also it only has two large cities, one ski resort, and a bunch of other smaller locations. The second city isn't even a big city just two hubs. So yeah not a huge playground.

Don't get wrong whats there is enjoyable but with a bigger budget I expected bigger cities, and more locations. Heck ATOM RPG with a smaller budget did it better.

Yea this is the only way I can stomach a TB game. Play it on easy so hours of my life don't dribble away in the painfully slow and dull TB combat mode.

I played on hardest difficulty and beat it just past the 50 hour mark, but that's considering I had to redo about 5 hours of game because the game bugged and corrupted my party. Also, without exaggerating, I'd say about 10% of that time was spent in loading screens. The loading times got worse and worse the further I got in to the game and by the final stages of it, those loading screens were taking literal minutes on a good quality SSD.

Someone in a previous post asked if it was worth it - I paid £1 as a first timer Gamepass on XBox app, so for me yes. For its intended £60 price tag? Hell no, not in a million years.

All in all, if the game had been bug free, I think it's a good game, but it's neither huge nor essential, much less in its current state and the fact that they just keep patching the console version while the PC one is broken as fuck. Still today I successfully replicated the bug that completely breaks your characters and essentially the whole game simply by using a basic game function such as swapping characters in and out of the roster.

Finished Wasteland 3, it probably took me about 50 hours. Loved the game. I really didn't run into the performance issues that many folk seem to have run into, and I'm thankful for that. The game didn't bug out or crash on me once, loading screens weren't too bad, and I guess I got lucky in many ways with that.

I did pay for the Deluxe edition to support the developer - I want more games like this to be made and that's my way of letting people know it - and I thought it was well worth the price. (Something like $60 for 50+ hours of playtime and the possibility of replaying it again in the future when it gets patched to all Hell was quite worth it for me.)

Also, I want to go rescue a kitten and name him Major Tomcat now.

My Major Tomcat died today.
He was poisoned and the interface on Xbox is god awful for things like administering antidote to a non-party member like an animal companion.

Originally Posted by yemeth
Just completed WL3 today. I think a lot of the reviews oversold it for me. It's definitely an improvement over WL2 in a lot of things and I had a good time but the whole thing felt too consolised and it was waaaay too easy, even on Ranger mode. Everything felt doable in a single playthrough itself (minus the branching paths) The vehicle sections felt very gimmicky and the technical side of things is a mess. I think Original Sin 2 and Disco Elysium ruined RPGs for me. But I feel like I might be a little too hard on the game? Idk. Writing a review tomorrow.

Nice one @yemeth. A lot of user comments I'm reading highlight the lack of challenge, and from the vids I've watch it looks an absolute cakewalk.

I think I'll be leaving this one for at least a year or so whilst they iron the bugs out, & hopefully increase the difficulty with a patch or three.

Tag me in your review mate, be interested to read the full one.

Originally Posted by Falksi
Nice one @yemeth. A lot of user comments I'm reading highlight the lack of challenge, and from the vids I've watch it looks an absolute cakewalk.

I think I'll be leaving this one for at least a year or so whilst they iron the bugs out, & hopefully increase the difficulty with a patch or three.

Tag me in your review mate, be interested to read the full one.

The problem, more than the combat difficulty itself, is that you can always enter combat in full advantage, placing your units in advantageous spots, and you will always have a full first turn before the enemy can react. Weapons are very lethal, and everything is oneshot-able, and for example, a well placed rocket launcher shot and couple of sniper shots here and there will see the entire enemy team wiped before they can even fight back properly. You could think "What bout bosses or big monsters, such as Scorpitron, 6k HP, huge scary mech with annihilation weapons?" - don't mind the weapons, it won't get to use them as it still gets oneshot by a sniper in the highest game difficulty.

That also allows you to completely ignore the initiative stat and max out your shooting/damaging stats. If the initiative system mattered at all, characters wouldn't end up so minmaxed, and combats would be more challenging/balanced. In the few instances where I've got jumped on with my characters out of cover (ie, after a scripted conversation), the enemy can actually apply the same treatment to you - before you can even act, you've lost 3-4 units, making it all a mess that would be difficult to win from there. However, even in those instances you can just take different conversation choices before the combat itself to be the one attacking first.

TL;DR, whoever takes the first turn in combat wins, and you can always take the first turn.

Originally Posted by Nereida
The problem, more than the combat difficulty itself, is that you can always enter combat in full advantage, placing your units in advantageous spots, and you will always have a full first turn before the enemy can react. Weapons are very lethal, and everything is oneshot-able, and for example, a well placed rocket launcher shot and couple of sniper shots here and there will see the entire enemy team wiped before they can even fight back properly. You could think "What bout bosses or big monsters, such as Scorpitron, 6k HP, huge scary mech with annihilation weapons?" - don't mind the weapons, it won't get to use them as it still gets oneshot by a sniper in the highest game difficulty.

That also allows you to completely ignore the initiative stat and max out your shooting/damaging stats. If the initiative system mattered at all, characters wouldn't end up so minmaxed, and combats would be more challenging/balanced. In the few instances where I've got jumped on with my characters out of cover (ie, after a scripted conversation), the enemy can actually apply the same treatment to you - before you can even act, you've lost 3-4 units, making it all a mess that would be difficult to win from there. However, even in those instances you can just take different conversation choices before the combat itself to be the one attacking first.

TL;DR, whoever takes the first turn in combat wins, and you can always take the first turn.

Yes exactly. Not to mention the fact that sniper rifles are OP as fuck. You can deplete 60% of a scorpitron's HP if you sneak attack it

It seems like games release in three stages these days:

1) Early access: bugged fragments of the game. You should expect bugs and balancing issues throughout and when you complain about them you "take part to the development of the game". Even though you'll have to pay the full price, you are not a customer, but rather a "supporter" or "developer".
2) v1.0: bugged entire games with serious balancing issues. Bugs are kind of expected these days and complaining about them helps little, although now you are not "taking part to the development" any longer. You are a customer.
3) "Definitive" or "Game of the Year" edition: close to what the game was supposed to be at release. Still some bugs and balancing issues but now they actually get fixed pretty quick. If the game was PC exclusive, it often gets published on consoles, and vice versa.

Sounds like I'll wait for the definitive edition with this one and spend my time on being frustrated with BG3 EA bugs. At least I know what to expect

I'm 16h in the game and have a very great time on standard difficulty so far. I can make up to 2 or 3 mistakes in battles and still win - for me the balance is perfect. I don't want to reload just because no mistakes are forgiven.

Wasteland 3 makes so much things right, that the games annoyances are easily forgiven.

I don't know why things the following things occur in a release version:
- within fog of war enemy and NPC models are not visible, but their weapons are
- I can see interactable items through walls, that feels like cheating, but far more annoying is that you may send a single PC into an enemy horde because "container" is behind a wall inside an unexplored building
- related: if I send a PC to interact with something it walks alone even if all PCs are selected
- related: all PCs switch their view to NPCs I'm starting to talk to - combined with their "moving sound" this is absolutely creepy

Quality of live features:
- I've not found a way to switch to turn based mode without attacking - very annoying when dealing with patrolling enemies
- I want a key to display the enemy line of sight (exploring mode)
- not all items are accessible with an item group
- would love some kind of stash within my inventory where I can place items manually on positions of my choice
- would love a filter for weapons and armor the currently selected PC can actually use (without penalty)

Originally Posted by Kylex
- I've not found a way to switch to turn based mode without attacking - very annoying when dealing with patrolling enemies

It's there. On Xbox it's R3. Look in the tutorials or Google it. You missed it.

And you don't need a key to display light of sight. The game shows a circle of detection range by default.