Wasteland 2 Kickstarter crowdfunding gets underway

A Kickstarter initiative to crowdfund a PC sequel to influential post-apocalyptic RPG Wasteland is now underway.

As announced last month, Brian Fargo, who co-designed the Interplay original back in 1988, is asking for $900,000 from fans to fund the follow-up at his current studio, inXile. Fargo will then personally put up an additional $100,000.

At the time of writing, the Kickstarter page has already pulled in $115,000 from nearly 2000 separate backers.

"This is probably the last chance for a Wasteland sequel," pleaded Fargo in the accompanying blurb.

"We have tried to pitch this game multiple times to game publishers, but they've balked. They don't think there's any interest in a solid, old school type of game.

"This is our shot at proving them wrong. And more importantly this could help bring back an entire genre of RPGs. The power of the indie scene continues and we see this as all part of a bigger trend of bringing control back to the developers."

Fargo promised the game will stick with the original's top-down gameplay, and will be developed with a number of the original design team on board.

The more money raised, the bigger the game will be.

"At $1.25 million, the money will go primarily into making the world bigger, adding more maps, more divergent stories and even more music," wrote Fargo.

"At $1.5 million, the world gets even bigger. You'll have more adventures to play, more challenges to deal with, and a greater level of complexity to the entire storyline. We'll add more environments, story elements, and characters to make the rich world come alive even more. We will even be able to bring Wasteland 2 to OS X for Mac lovers.

"And after $1.5 million the sky is the limit."

Naturally, there are various reward tiers depending on how much you choose to donate. $15 gets you a free download of the finished game, whereas $10,000 gets a shrine dedicated to you in-game, an invitation to an exclusive development party, 50 copies of the game to distribute at your leisure, various bits of concept art, figurines, collectibles and in-game perks.

If its funding goal is reached, development is expected to take a total of 18 months.