What is Wasteland 3?

Wasteland 3 is inXile Entertainment's isometric, turn-based CRPG, and the third chapter in a franchise that, without hyperbole, predates Fallout and helped invent the post-apocalyptic RPG genre. You play as a pair of Desert Rangers from Arizona, dropped into the frozen hellscape of Colorado after a desperate deal with a self-proclaimed local tyrant called the Patriarch. From there you build a squad of up to six characters, mix custom Rangers with story-driven companions, and try to hold a crumbling society together while every faction in the state schemes to carve out their slice of what's left. The character system deserves serious attention from build-craft enthusiasts. You assign Attributes that govern action points, movement range, and armor options, then layer Skills on top: Mechanics, Explosives, Nerd Stuff, Sneaky Shit, Kiss Ass, Hard Ass, Toaster Repair, and a dozen more. These are not decorative. Skill checks gate quests, unlock locations, open dialogue branches, and quietly determine which ending you stumble into. The game pools your whole party's skills when you click on an object, so the correct character just handles it automatically, which is a quality-of-life win that makes managing six characters feel far less punishing than it sounds. Combat is action-point-based and grid-driven, with cover, Overwatch, flanking, stealth positioning via the Sneaky Shit skill, and occasional Kodiak vehicle artillery thrown into the mix. Difficulty spikes exist, and the Supreme Jerk mode earns its name, but on standard settings the game gradually tightens the tactical screws rather than front-loading the cruelty. The writing is where I kept stopping to appreciate the craft. The factions here, a Reagan-worshipping cult, the Patriarch's corrupt police force, entrenched oligarch families in Colorado Springs, and several flavors of cannibal, are all drawn with enough internal logic that you feel the weight of choosing between them. Some major NPCs get full first-person mocapped scenes reminiscent of Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines. Companions like Scotchmo (comedy alcoholic) and Vic (taunting serial killer) are specific and weird enough to stick in memory. The darker texture is cut with absurdist humor, malfunctioning toasters yield loot, a swearing parrot can join your squad, and the world tone lands somewhere between Coen Brothers and midnight radio static. Not every joke lands, and some side missions blur into comfortable CRPG filler, but the writing is strong enough that even mid-tier quests tend to have a point. The criticisms are real but manageable. Launch bugs, including co-op desyncs and occasional quest-state locks, were a genuine problem at release. Post-launch patches addressed the worst of it, and the current PC experience is significantly smoother. The overworld map traversal in the Kodiak, while atmospheric, involves some repetitive random encounters. Consequence legibility is murkier than in something like Divinity: Original Sin 2, meaning your faction standing can shift in ways that feel opaque until an ending blindsides you. The setting also carries the genre fatigue burden: Fallout descended from this series, which means Wasteland 3 sometimes feels like it invented a language that everyone else has been speaking for thirty years. That's not the game's fault, but it is your problem as a player. For RPG fans willing to invest real time in a reactive, build-diverse, grimly funny tactical CRPG, Wasteland 3 holds up well past the 40-hour mark. The Colorado Collection, which adds the Battle of Steeltown and Cult of the Holy Detonation DLC expansions, deepens the runtime further if the base game hooks you.

Monika · Scout Team

RPGs

Be the first to comment on What is Wasteland 3?.