Wasteland 3 Fig Update #4, $2,908,389 and Counting

The latest Fig update to Wasteland 3 includes an early look at the multiplayer design for the title and some new concept art for “Morningstar”, the talking car stretch goal for $3 million. An excerpt:

In Wasteland 3, you can start a multiplayer-specific campaign with a friend. The campaign will then be tied to both of you. Once started, you won’t be able to “replace” your friend with another, but if either of you can’t continue playing for any reason, it will be possible to “spin off” a single-player campaign from your multiplayer world state.

Both players run separate Ranger squads, sharing from the pool of available companion NPCs to build your teams. You can’t both have the same companions, but you can move a companion from one squad to another. The two squads can travel together, but you can also split up and explore the world separately.

The ability to split up is a choice, and it has important consequences. In Wasteland 3, we will support asynchronous multiplayer. This means that if your friend goes offline, you’ll still be able to continue playing, and the actions you take will be reflected in the world when your friend logs back in.

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You might be thinking “this sounds fun, but how are they going to tell a coherent story this way, or stop my friend from completely ruining my game?!” While most of the game can be played either separately or together, during key narrative moments and missions, we’ll require both players to be online together. This means that while you will be able to play most of the game together or separately, for those critical story moments, or when major story decisions need to be made, both players will need to be present. This’ll happen infrequently, only at core moments in the game, and you’ll be able to play many hours of main story and side missions before you need your buddy to progress. In single-player, you won’t need a friend playing with you to experience those same moments, but of course, you will need to live with the decisions you make and their consequences.