Wasteland 2: Director’s Cut Released, Launch Trailer

While European console players will have to wait until this Friday, the Director’s Cut version of Wasteland 2 has been released today on PC (on Steam and GOG), Xbox One and PlayStation 4. PC players that already own the title should find it under a separate entry in their digital library. Save games won’t be compatible between the original version of the game and the new Director’s Cut.

Here’s the launch trailer:

And here’s an example of some of the improvements included:

Director’s Cut New Features:

Complete Graphics Overhaul: Rebuilt in Unity 5, Wasteland 2’s environments and characters have been updated to take advantage of the latest graphics technologies.
Perks &: Quirks: Customize your squad even more! Perks & Quirks are special personality traits you can use to give your characters even more life, with their own unique bonuses… and drawbacks.
Precision Strikes: Fire on your enemies and debilitate them with tactical attacks! Cripple a leg to slow an enemy down, fire on their gun to blast it to bits, or aim for the head to knock them senseless or blow it clean off.
Expanded Voice Over: Over 8,000 lines of new voice-over dialog have been added for the game’s characters and companions, bringing the Wasteland to life like never before.

I have access to a review key but haven’t had time to get very far into the game yet, but the jump in terms of graphical fidelity and production values seemed pretty obvious to me. There is also a lot of new voice acting, though not all of it is particularly good.

The new Perks and Quirks system is shamelessly inspired by the original Fallout games, but a lot of the Perks and Quirks themselves seemed very interesting and more elaborate than simple attribute bonuses (though there was a fair bit of that too). The jury is out on the balance, though.

A word of warning too: the camera system of the re-release is currently bugged, though Brian Fargo has promised that a patch to fix it would be released today. Depending on how sensitive you are to issues that involve camera controls, you might want to wait until the patch’s release.

As usual, feel free to let us know your thoughts on this re-release of what is arguably the godfather of crowdfunded role-playing videogames.