Wasteland (1988)
Wasteland is a 1988 role-playing (rpg) video game made by Interplay Productions and Electronic Arts.
In the irradiated deserts of 1998 Arizona, a squad of Desert Rangers works patrol. The world ended in nuclear exchange, and what remains is contested by raider gangs, mutated animals, and stranger things. Ken St. Andre and Michael Stackpole brought Tunnels and Trolls mechanics to the screen: a full roster of statistics, dozens of skills, and a party that assembles and upgrades over a long campaign. Permanent character death gives every combat weight. The result, in 1988, was the blueprint that Fallout would later build on, with much of its design philosophy flowing directly from these Arizona wastelands.
Quick answers
What is Wasteland about?
In the irradiated deserts of 1998 Arizona, a squad of Desert Rangers works patrol. The world ended in nuclear exchange, and what remains is contested by raider gangs, mutated animals, and stranger things. Ken St. Andre and Michael Stackpole brought Tunnels and Trolls mechanics to the screen: a full roster of statistics, dozens of skills, and a party that assembles and upgrades over a long campaign. Permanent character death gives every combat weight. The result, in 1988, was the blueprint that Fallout would later build on, with much of its design philosophy flowing directly from these Arizona wastelands.
When was Wasteland released?
Wasteland was released on 2 January 1988.
Who made Wasteland?
Wasteland was made by Interplay Productions and Electronic Arts.
Similar games
Explore Wasteland guides
Wasteland in our writing
- Companion guide: The CRPG: The Complete Guide to Computer Role-Playing Games
- Companion guide: Interplay: By Gamers, For Gamers, and the Golden Age of the RPG
- Companion guide: Post-Apocalyptic RPGs: From Wasteland to Fallout and Every Ruin Between
A few thoughts on Wasteland
The Rangers' Arizona shares its bones with Fallout: New Vegas, the most direct heir to Wasteland's tone, same desert dust, same weight to each squad member's survival. For the tabletop-depth skill system, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim delivers a modern take on the same skill-grows-as-you-use-it loop, now in an open world worth walking across.
A world after everything fell apart, and no one is coming to save it
Wasteland drops its Desert Rangers into an Arizona left to raider gangs and mutated animals after the bombs fell. These stories share that same collapse: a scorched desert crossed by exhausted survivors with nowhere safe to go, a city under occupation where old rules no longer apply, an outlaw band riding out the last days of the frontier, and a ruined post-outbreak America struggling to hold together.
Games where grinding stats through action, not menus, defines your character
Wasteland tracks a deep roster of skills that only grow through what your Rangers do in the field. These games build characters the same hands-on way: a wanderer whose skills sharpen with every swing and spell, a monster hunter whose signs and blades improve through use, a god forging his strength through every fight, and a hustler whose stamina and muscle grow from what he does on the street.
Albums that sound like a warning the world is ending
Wasteland plays out in an Arizona still radioactive from a war that already happened, its future a cautionary tale told after the fact. These records carry that same warning: a rocker naming the war he cannot look away from, a genetic future sold as spectacle, a rapper narrating a wasted year three thousand thirty, an apocalyptic vision of black holes and revelations, and a warning about a simulated future arriving.
A small band standing against overwhelming odds
Wasteland's Desert Rangers patrol in a small squad because nothing in this wasteland can be handled alone. These stories share that same math: a conscript thrown into a war against alien forces built to grind soldiers down, a lone crewman solving one impossible problem after another to save a dying sun, a bounty hunter and the small child he refuses to abandon, and a one-man war against a criminal empire.