The World Map

Like Fallout or Arcanum, the basic experience on the world map is one of exploration and discovery.

Your travel on the world map is limited by both physical geography and clouds of deadly radiation. Within those constraints, you can travel anywhere in the region depicted on the map. You have two alternative means of exploration while in this game mode.


Primary exploration occurs in a 3D map that shows your immediate surrounding environment with representative scale and geographic features of the region. Significant locations, settlements and sites reveal themselves as you scout around. The 3D exploration is in the same style and pattern as Mount & Blade and Neverwinter Nights 2: Storm of Zehir.

While in the 3D world map, you can press “M” to bring up a 2D map displaying the entire region. This 2D regional map automatically updates with locations you have either explored yourself, or have been informed of by another Wastelander. The regional map has been handed down from ranger to ranger over the previous century, each adding their own details to what was originally an old-fashioned roadmap from the 1990s.

As you discover radiation zones they are marked on your map In Arizona, locations generally match their canonical layout from Wasteland 1. The map is filled with key locations you will discover through regular playthroughs; but significant sections of the map are side exploration opportunities. There is plenty of space to wander around, discover hidden resources based on your character’s build, fight random encounters and discover minor sites that may be explored in normal game mode.

Skill and Abilities

Your rangers possess a variety skills to help you brave these many dangers. Outdoorsman is the most important for the world map, affecting water consumption, dehydration survival distance, scouting range for new settlements and sites, starting position for random encounters, your chance to run away from said danger, and more. Outdoorsman is the key skill for travel, but you will find uses for it in various other areas of the game as well.

Luck is likely the second most important ability or skill while travelling on the world map. Luck impacts what kind of hidden caches you discover in The Wasteland and how much loot they contain, as well as your likelihood of escape if you try to run away from a random encounter. There are also certain resources and events on the world map that you will only be able to discover if you are extremely Lucky.

Finally, Speed has obvious impact in relation to random encounters, as mentioned above, and several of your other abilities and skills will reveal hidden caches, high value items, unique encounters and undiscovered oases with greatly increased water supplies.​

Wasteland 1

We noted back in Update 33 that Wasteland 1 would be getting a standalone release.

Where is it!

First, we’re ensuring it runs on modern machines, higher resolutions, faster processors, and all that jazz. We’re also giving it some polish for rerelease including a Mark Morgan music track, integration of the original paragraph texts into the game, and optional paragraph voice over & uprezzed portraits (both of which may be toggled on and off). We've spent a very limited amount of time on the WL1 portrait uprezzes and if possible we'd like to open up the ability to customize the WL1 portraits to the community themselves. We’ve also added support for multiple save games – now you don’t have to wipe the game clean to start over.

Wasteland 1 will be made available for free to all backers (including late backers as well as people getting it through the rewards associated with backing Torment: Tides of Numenera or Project Eternity), and sold as a separate title on GOG and Steam.