14 DAY TRIAL // One of the most interesting features of the upcoming Wasteland 2 is the collaboration between developers inXile and the scientists at Thawacke, designed to ensure that the entire experience is as close to scientific principles as possible.
Sebastian Alvarado, one of the members, has talked to Gamasutra about the involvement and offers one specific example linked to one of the game areas.
He says, “We thought about the hermit crab, something that lives in both aquatic and terrestrial environments. They've done a pretty good job of surviving on land. We assumed radiation is a gating mechanism, so why not just let them grow significantly in size?”
Alvarado adds, “We pitched the idea, along with several others, of hermit crabs that move into a bus, they could walk around with a bus on them. We went into the biology of some of these crabs that can regenerate limbs and how they could apply that to game design when setting up a boss.”
The Ph.D. biology candidate says that all those involved are doing real research and then using what they learn as the basis for speculation about the future.
All Thwacke members are specialists in their fields who are also interested in a variety of video games and that gives them the ability to understand how both subject areas can interact in meaningful ways.
inXile and Brian Fargo have high hopes for Wasteland 2, which will create an entirely new post-apocalypse world while introducing players to a number of classic party-based action role-playing mechanics.
The game will allow players to create and control Desert Rangers as they explore the new world, face its many threats and interact with other surviving human communities.
Wasteland 2 is set to launch on the PC in late 2013, after getting record funding via the Kickstarter service.