14 DAY TRIAL // What we know: Wasteland 2 is the story of the Desert Rangers, the only source of law for a strip of the United States after a nuclear holocaust that took place in 1998.
The game will use party-based mechanics, allowing players to both create their own characters and recruit NPCs from the world.
The team at inXile is planning a deep role-playing game system, with primary abilities and skills that will be mixed in interesting ways in order to give players the freedom to create their own party while also forcing them to adapt to the challenges they meet.
The tactical combat portion of Wasteland 2 will be turn based, with players able to assess the situation on the battlefield and then choose their course of action wisely, conserving resources and character actions.
inXile is also promising an interesting world to explore, some cool callbacks to the first Wasteland titles and a lot of humor interwoven in the dialog and the various item and location descriptions.
Wasteland 2 is currently set to launch on the Windows PC, Linux and Mac during October 2013.
Why it matters: Wasteland 2 is important because it represents one of the first titles that has received massive funding via the Kickstarter service. The main reason for its success was nostalgia for the good old gaming days of the '90s, with a healthy dose of respect for the team that created them.
Its overall quality and market success will show other teams whether this business model, which relies on fans and on reviving older properties, has a future or will burn itself out in a few years.
Wasteland 2 is also part of a welcomed revival for party-based tactical titles, which went almost extinct in the early 2000s and the impact it will have will probably show us whether modern gamers can still enjoy the genre.
The full Incoming 2013 series of articles can be read on Softpedia right here.