Wasteland 2 Preview

The editors at GameInformer have brought us the first English language preview of Wasteland 2 after checking out inXile's ambitious RPG sequel firsthand at this week's Gamescom event. Some generous quoting ahead:
The game's story is pretty massive; the script alone features over 400,000 words and is still growing. However, the most impressive aspect of Wasteland 2 so far is how gamers are able to influence the story and shape the world around them.

For example, early on in our journey through the Wasteland demo at Gamescom, we ran into a character named Fred. Fred is a merchant, but he can't sell us anything because his cart is stuck in a mud pit. After talking with Fred, we decide to help him out. One of our characters has a skill call brute force, which allows him to move heavy objects, so we use that character to move Fred's cart. Now we can buy all kinds of great stuff from his shop.

Wasteland 2's world is persistent and evolving. Since we helped Fred, we'll likely run into him again a few hours down the road, and he'll have better stuff to trade for. However, players can choose to kill any person in the game. If we killed Fred instead of helping him, for example, we'd never see him again. Alternatively, if we killed his goat, he'd be pissed at us for the rest of the game. Wasteland 2 has no karma bar or morality meter; no one is judging players for the actions they take, but the world reacts to what they do in logical ways.

Your own crew can be a diverse cast of characters. Players are able to recruit dozens of different characters into their party, but each person has different abilities and drawbacks. Your best lockpicker, for example, might be great at stealing things, but he might also be stealing from you. Do you want to keep him around? One of your best fighters might also be a drunk and a bear to deal with. Can you keep a leash on him?