W2 feels more like an epic adventure but changes some of its rules in the second half of the game and also gets much harder in both skill checks and combat, turning it into a slog. The main story of W3 is shorter and anticlimactic but encourages you to grind on the side to get the minimum level recommendations. I feel like both games were pretty even in the amount of quest content and pop culture humor. The story in Wasteland 3 is more brutal and shocking-with plenty for gorehounds-but Wasteland 2 has more intrigue and the missions feel more neo-frontier and by-the-skin-of-yer-teeth. In W3 there is carry over of different characters-only one of them appears in all three games. Similarly, W2 brings back several characters from W1 so you are probably going to want to see what happens to them if you have more recently played the first game in the series.

My lead character is an explosive specialist, which lets her support the squad by lobbing HE in addition to disarming traps. ARs were nerfed a bit in W2:DC but I went through the whole game with multiple snipers and riflemen.Įdit: In W2 if you give each character in your party one combat skill and one or two non combat specialties to focus on, your party as a whole gets powerful quickly that same basic strategy works in W3 but the game encourages more diversification of weaponry, with submachine gun/assault rifle storm troopers being really strong. It has more explicit references to post-apocalypse films.Įdit: in the original version of W2 it's assault rifles were really powerful and sniper characters are really solid too. Wasteland 2 Director's Cut though is a great choice if you want to go for the classic Fallout 1 & 2 vibe first and also get some of the QoL that was later baked into W3. Wasteland 2 combat looks a little more classic, like what Fallout 'Van Buren' might have been if Interplay hadn't shuttered Black Isle. It looks and feels a little more like Divinity Original Sin in the look and quality of the turnbased combat but with guns and fewer options for environmental attacks. The combat is solid in 3 and I found it more satisfying to play. Otherwise you don't need to play Wasteland 2 to understand what's going on in 3. Hi! Wasteland 3 opens with spoilers for 2 IIRC.

Download free wasteland 2 steam