Microsoft went on quite the buying spree over the last couple of years. While they seem to be done, at least for the time being, one of the studios they scooped up was InXile Entertainment as they were in the midst of developing their next RPG, Wasteland 3. While it probably seems like a no-brainer, if you’re curious what types of impacts an acquisition can have to a mid-development project, InXile can actually give you an idea.
In an interview with GamesBeat, InXile’s Jeremy Kopman talked about various aspects of the game. When asked about what the project looked like post-Microsoft, he said despite the fact that the game is still being published by Deep Silver, Microsoft pitched in a lot of resources and thanks to that they had extra budget and time for things like full voiceovers, something they couldn’t have done before.
“We got some more time and a bunch more resources. We’ve been able to step up the visual quality. We were able to fully lock in on full voiceover for all dialogue in the game. It’s not a small amount of V/O. Those things were not opportunities we had before the Microsoft acquisition. It’s really opened up some of those avenues.”
It’s probably nothing shocking in the end to realize a company helps out another company after purchasing them, but it’s interesting to think there could be a lot missing from Wasteland 3 had they not got bought out. The game will release sometime in 2020, though the PC requirements have already been revealed.