Wasteland 3 - State of the Frozen Union – July 2021

The latest update for Wasteland 3 talks about 1.5.0 and when we can expect it.

Rangers, grab your flask and your Hobo Dog, and set yourselves around the irradiated campfire. So far this year we've covered a lot of ground, but we've still got a ways to go before this leg of the adventure is done. As a brief recap of 2021 to date, we opened the gates to the Patriarch's production factories at Steeltown, leveled up the game with crafting and an animal companion kennel, shared a slew of behind-the-scenes videos, dropped the soundtrack on Spotify, launched our initial merch offering, and even set our mouths on fire with some hot wings, just for you.

But we're not quite done yet. Before the summer is out, we'll be announcing our second and final DLC for Wasteland 3, and we're excited to share those details soon. First, we have some important updates to detail.

Hotfix 1.4.6 & Patch 1.5.0

With a recent update a particularly sticky dialog issue was introduced, where players are unable to select any dialog options at key points in Little Vegas and Steeltown. Thanks to some eagle-eyed redditors, a workaround involving having Kwon and/or Lucia hang back at HQ during those conversations reportedly helped in those situations. All the same, we've got the fix for these which will be hitting the various platforms as soon as next week.

After 1.4.6, a larger forthcoming update (Patch 1.5.0) will be taking square aim at continuing to improve and refine the co-op experience in Wasteland 3. We know that for many of you co-op is your preferred way to deal with dispensing justice and we want to deliver the experience you're looking for. We're aware that since launch there's been a number of issues reported with co-op, so we'll be doing our best here to knock as many of these out as we can with a single blow. We're expecting 1.5.0 to be ready in a few weeks.

Improving Co-op

One of the primary challenges with co-op in our game is that we're peer-to-peer, and that puts all the strain of communicating the game state on the players' machines and network connection, rather than on a server. We've found troubleshooting firewalls, routers, and host network resolves a decent amount of these.

As we noted above, there are definitely still co-op bugs we'll be addressing in Patch 1.5.0 to reduce interactivity and display issues (the full change list will be available in the final patch notes), but we're also looking at adding some ways to help players better identify when their network connection could be contributing to the problems.

In cases where there's a disconnection, we'll be generating an autosave for both players to ensure you can jump back in right where you left off. And if one player decides to quit, we'll have better messaging so you'll know what happened, rather than just see a generic disconnection error. We'll also be making the connection strength indicator in the lobby more reliable, which will show if a co-op session may be unreliable due to either player's networks.

Co-op Quality of Life Features

Focusing our energy on fixing co-op bugs and helping players diagnose connection issues should go a long way to improving the co-op experience, but we're also looking to add quality-of-life features. When 1.5.0 drops, you'll be able to see what your co-op partner is hovering over/selecting in combat, in the inventory, and when perusing merchant wares. Communication is key in co-op, but this helps take some of the guesswork out of what the other player is thinking.

Additionally, while checking the inventory, you'll be able to see the gear details of your partner's squad members. With 1.5.0, conversations with skill checks will also automatically update the moment your friend joins the conversation, allowing them to sweet talk you out of whatever sticky situation you got yourself into when you ran off solo.

End Game DLC Rewind

Patch 1.5.0 isn't entirely focused on co-op; we have a bunch of other fixes and quality of life improvements, not the least of which is allowing players to access the DLC even after they've passed the point of no return.

We were caught a bit off guard with how many of you only keep a single save file, which meant that when you went to go play Steeltown your only option was to replay the game from the start. Now, we think it's absolutely worth a replay (or five) but we understand not everyone is looking to take on the full burden of Colorado's problems again.

We're fixing that in 1.5.0 by letting those of you past the endgame point of no return to go back to the world map, manage your squad (including replacing lost Rangers), and restock before attempting the DLC content.

Other Cool Stuff

The patch is a big'un, with fixes and improvements across the board. We'll have the full details in the patch notes (when the patch goes live), of course. In the meantime, if you have co-op bugs you've never reported or it just seems we must not know about, please sound off on the official forums as we'd like to make sure we're getting as much into this future update as possible.

Thanks for continuing this journey with us! We look forward to getting 1.5.0 in your hands and blowing your minds with the second and final DLC.

- Wasteland 3 Team

Thanks bjon045!

More information.

Once again waiting two years to play a game seems the new norm. With countless huge patches and DLC a game is never finished. Sigh I miss the old days sometimes.

Notice I said sometimes not always.

The game was a disappointment to me felt like a huge empty world. Turn-based combat just padded the game length. Don't get me started on the made for console GUI either.

So when is the enhanced or so called director cut version going to be released?

Originally Posted by Couchpotato
Once again waiting two years to play a game seems the new norm. With countless huge patches and DLC a game is never finished. Sigh I miss the old days sometimes.

Notice I said sometimes not always.

The game was a disappointment to me felt like a huge empty world. Turn-based combat just padded the game length. Don't get me started on the made for console GUI either.

So when is the enhanced or so called director cut version going to be released?

2 years for the game to be properly fixed - and at least 1 year for decent mods designed around the final version

As for WL3 - I'm glad they're improving co-op. My brother and I had to give up our playthrough because it was just too frustrating - which was sad, as we were having a lot of fun with the game.

Originally Posted by Couchpotato
The game was a disappointment to me felt like a huge empty world.

Felt like a small empty world to me, so for me it may have been even more of a disappointment. Everything felt small: the cities, the overworld, everything. It's not a bad game but I couldn't shake being consistently underwhelmed, especially with the memory of its imo superior predecessor fresh in mind.

I think I've only played it for 15-20 hours, myself - but it certainly wasn't empty. Just not a very big game - but content density seemed on point.

Maybe it's worse later on? How unfortunate. Most critics and players seem to think it's quite superior to the previous games.

Originally Posted by JFarrell71
Felt like a small empty world to me, so for me it may have been even more of a disappointment. Everything felt small: the cities, the overworld, everything. It's not a bad game but I couldn't shake being consistently underwhelmed, especially with the memory of its imo superior predecessor fresh in mind.

Wasteland 2 covered two different sates with more locations. I don't know if it was budget reasons, or the need for more resources on the map in the the third game.

Then again they probably listened to survey feedback and responded to it.

Anyway yeah Wasteland 2 was the better game.

Originally Posted by DArtagnan
I think I've only played it for 15-20 hours, myself - but it certainly wasn't empty. Just not a very big game - but content density seemed on point.

Maybe it's worse later on? How unfortunate. Most critics and players seem to think it's quite superior to the previous games.

The main city is the only place with multiple districts. The other locations are smaller by comparison. The mall is probably the second biggest location and only half the size.

(This is without the DLC)

The rest are smaller by comparison.

Originally Posted by Couchpotato
The main city is the only place with multiple districts. The other locations are smaller by comparison. The mall is probably the second biggest location and only half the size.

(This is without the DLC)

The rest are smaller by comparison.

Yeah, as I said it's not a big game. I'm talking about the empty part, which - to me - is about content density.

Are later areas mostly empty or void of content? If so, it's odd that it's such a popular game with so many WL fans.

I would have thought they preferred more content density rather than less.

I can appreciate the smaller world approach - though I personally prefer things to be a little more spread out. I like to get the sense of a large open world - and I don't mind a little padding here or there to make it doable.

But WL3 certainly struck me as a much more accomplished and well-designed game than WL2 - which, while I enjoyed it, was very inconsistent in terms of quality - and really started to drag towards the latter half of the game.

That said, if you look at a game like Fallout 1 - which is arguably one of the most popular, if not THE most popular post-apoc CRPG - I'd say WL3 is at least twice the size of it.

I really enjoyed wasteland 3.
Agree it could have been a bit bigger, but I found the game a lot of fun and certainly not empty.

Lol, at people still using a single save file; that's just asking for trouble!

Originally Posted by JFarrell71
Felt like a small empty world to me, so for me it may have been even more of a disappointment. Everything felt small: the cities, the overworld, everything. It's not a bad game but I couldn't shake being consistently underwhelmed, especially with the memory of its imo superior predecessor fresh in mind.

I'm glad I'm not alone, as the initial response here was very positive, and I thought I was the only one who found the game so underwhelming. I find the main storyline, voice acting, and visuals better than Wasteland 2, but the quests, world, and level design much worse.

Originally Posted by DArtagnan
I think I've only played it for 15-20 hours, myself - but it certainly wasn't empty. Just not a very big game - but content density seemed on point.
Maybe it's worse later on? How unfortunate. Most critics and players seem to think it's quite superior to the previous games.

The game's weakness becomes more apparent as the game progresses. The big quest hubs are all at the beginning. Once you've been to Denver, the game is primarily one fight after another, and in my opinion, Wasteland's strength has always been as a crpg, and not a tactics game. I really had to push myself to finish the last third of the game, and felt like it was a big slog.

The game's weakness becomes more apparent as the game progresses. The big quest hubs are all at the beginning. Once you've been to Denver, the game is primarily one fight after another, and in my opinion, Wasteland's strength has always been as a crpg, and not a tactics game.

Aww

I was looking forward to playing this all the way through down the line - and fully expected a similar quality throughout.

So many disappointing games these days, I find. It's like it's mid-2000s all over again.

They could ditch the co-op nonsense entirely and focus more - I'd be fine with it. Even at the height of my co-op gaming days none of us would ever have played a game like this MP. I don't get the appeal - it has to be microscopic.

Well, it might not be the optimal business decision to focus on co-op mode, but I would recommend against assuming too much based on subjective anecdotal evidence.

As with all things, there's nuance here.

First of all, even if only 5% of the people who buy this game are interested in co-op - that number doesn't tell the whole story if 9 out of 10 games like this don't support co-op.

Guess which game those 5% will buy - where otherwise all games would potentially have to split those players if they all had the same features.

Beyond that, I think we can all agree that making a game and implementing features based 100% on what's the optimal business decision, is not how we would want designers to make games for us.

We have the mainstream AAA games for that - and for the movies, we have Marvel movies.

So, even if one doesn't enjoy co-op in this way personally, it can sometimes be a good idea to allow for other minorities to have their features - because it promotes diversity - and it also makes you somewhat less of a selfish asshole.

I'm waiting on the state of the entire Wasteland three definitive edition!

Glad I haven't played it yet either no reason with so many games to play already.

A bit disappointed to hear it's a smallish world that is a combat slog near the end. Hopefully the DLCs will help with that.

Yea, I have not started the game yet either, and it sounds like maybe the second dlc will be better and more substantial than the first one, so will definitely be waiting on that.