Satisfactory

“First-person Factorio” isn’t the worst way to define Satisfactory but Coffee Stain Studios’ factory sandbox has plenty of distinctions. Set on an alien planet must be colonized, the world is hand-crafted and not procedurally generated. You can choose a starting location, like the Grasslands or Rocky Desert, thus influencing starting resources and your approach to building.

Combat is present but not a major focus – it’s all about creating a self-sustained factory spanning the surface, and delivering them to the Space Elevator. While still in early access and needing plenty of polish, the feeling of expanding, optimizing your factory and gazing out upon the sprawling industrial complex in first-person is great.

The Wasteland series has one of the weirdest lineages of just about any game series out there. The first game came out way back in 1988, and then inspired the Fallout series, which was then bought by Bethesda. The series then returned over twenty-five years later in 2014 with members from the original studio. Now that original 1988 game is coming back around with a new remastered version.

The game was announced in the middle of last year, but there’s mostly been radio silence afterward. Now though via the official game Twitter they announced that the game will release next month. Those who own Wasteland 2 on PC will get the remastered original for free.

Wasteland Remastered will release for Xbox One (as well as the Xbox Game Pass) and PC on February 28th. While no other platforms were announced, the official Twitter did say it could come to other systems at some point. The latest entry in the series, Wasteland 3, will be available on May 19th.

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Wasteland Remastered drops in just one more month—February 25 for Windows (Windows Store, Steam, GOG) and Xbox One (with Xbox Game Pass)! pic.twitter.com/qSCqITMRcq

— Wasteland (@Wasteland) January 22, 2020

InXile Entertainment’s Wasteland 3 is out next year and will be coming to Xbox One, PS4 and PC. So what better way to prepare for it then by getting Wasteland 2 for free? Head over to GOG to claim the Wasteland 2 Director’s Cut Digital Classic Edition. It’s free till December 12th.

But what about the first Wasteland? That’s the real kicker -in addition to Wasteland 2, players will also receive Wasteland 1 for free. You can thus experience the journey of the Desert Rangers from the very beginning before the sequel arrives.

As for Wasteland 3, it’s currently slated to release on May 19th 2020. It takes players to Colorado which is ruled by the Patriarch. You’re effectively the last surviving member of Ranger squad Team November and must find a way to survive in the murderous frozen wastes. The game promises to be over 50 hours long, not counting the replay value possible from all the choices made. Stay tuned for more details en route to release.

We have been hearing that VR will be the next big step for gaming for a while now- but until recently, when the VR market finally started showing some signs of life, we haven’t seen anything tangible to warrant that kind of optimism or confidence. The market isn’t aware or interested, software support does not seem to be there, and actual applications of the tech seem to be hard to envision for now.

However, creator Brian Fargo, best known for games like Fallout and Wasteland, thinks that VR is the real deal- and that unlike something like Kinect, it’s here to stay.

“When you play virtual reality games – and I play them all practically – it’s some of the most fun I’ve had in years,” he said. “So I’m taking my lessons from, ‘OK, where there’s passion, there’s going to be an industry.’ On the converse, you think about something like the Kinect, for example, which saw all this hype behind it, but it felt forced. You sort of play it and you’re grimacing through it and you’re trying to think, ‘How could this apply to real games more than the casual rafting or playing with pets?’ I never quite saw that. In that regard, we look at that and say, we shouldn’t have been surprised it didn’t work because there wasn’t the kind of passion you’d like to see with a new piece of hardware and new medium. That’s what VR has.”

He may be right- and I am not saying VR won’t be big in the future. I am just saying that from where we stand at the moment, VR has done very little to warrant the kind of hype that it has.

[GamesIndustry]

Earlier today on their website, Game Informer revealed the cover and feature of their September print issue, which will be Dragon Age: Inquisition. Inquisition, the third installment in the Dragon Age series is set to release in Q3 of 2014 for PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360 and Xbox One.

A quick glimpse at the game’s plot is given to readers on the website: Players will find themselves at the head of an organization called The Inquisition, charged with combating corruption and evil in the realm of Thedas, a land which has been devastated by war and political tomfoolery. A large hole opens in the sky, out of which hoards of demons emerge forcing the intervention of the inquisition.

Dragon Age: Inquisition has been promised to be much larger than the previous installments, with one map in particular being four or five times larger than the entire setting of the first game in the series. This promises for a massive story, with plenty of exploration and side questing.

The September Game Informer will also feature several interest pieces, among them an interview with Brian Fargo, the name behind Wasteland, and take a look at the upcoming competition between Skylanders and Disney Infinity.

Update: Added video