Wasteland
1988 · RPG · Apple II / DOS
Overview
Wasteland (1988) is Interplay's post-nuclear role-playing game, in which a squad of Desert Rangers explores the ruined American Southwest. Fallout (1997) is widely seen as its spiritual successor.
Deep Dive
In 2087, survivors of a 1998 nuclear war live in the south-western United States, and a team of Desert Rangers investigates an artificial intelligence at Base Cochise that is building killer machines. The rules come from tabletop role-playing games: characters have seven attributes, and the party can grow from four members to seven. The world is persistent and the game is known for its harshness. Story text is printed in a separate paragraph book, which also served as copy protection.
Developer Story
Brian Fargo directed and Alan Pavlish led programming, while Ken St. Andre and Michael A. Stackpole wrote and designed it with Liz Danforth. EA released it for the Apple II in March 1988, and it sold about 250,000 copies.
Did You Know?
- Computer Gaming World named it Adventure Game of the Year for 1988.
- inXile acquired the rights in 2003 and made Wasteland 2 (2014) and Wasteland 3 (2020).
Sources & further reading
- Wasteland (video game) — Wikipedia
