Obsidian Co-developing Wasteland 2 With inXile if $2.1M Milestone is Reached

Some pretty big news just arrived to us via Rock, Paper, Shotgun: apparently Obsidian Entertainment will lend their hand with the development of Wasteland 2 if the fundraising drive manages to reach at least $2.1 million by the end. Here’s a couple of quotes from Obsidian’s co-founder Chris Avellone and inXile’s CEO Brian Fargo:

Says Chris Avellone, (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 observes that (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.)

It’s about tools to speed up and ease development as much as it is bringing in addition talent, apparently. (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.)

Hopefully the Kickstarter milestone will be reached, because this sounds like an incredibly interesting collaboration.