Wasteland 3 load times reduced by 'up to 60%', inXile say

(Image credit: inXile Entertainment)

Patch 1.1.2 for Wasteland 3 is live and inXile are calling it a "Save Scummers Delight", saying that, "Our engineers changed how the game loads levels, reducing load times by up to 60% on PC and 25% on console." They give the example of a 38-second load time on their test hardware dropping to 13 seconds.

The PC version did launch with some pretty long loading times, but as a relic who remembers when Thief: The Dark Project's load screens used to take several minutes there was one advantage to that. You were more likely to live with your mistakes rather than just hitting quickload to undo them if it meant staring at a progress bar, even if it was only for 38 seconds. You young whipper-snappers can get off my lawn.

Other changes in this patch address specific bugs caused by the sniper rifle's Chain Ambush ability and the Precision Strike perk, as well as various progress-blocking issues in the Yuma County Speedway area. The full patch notes are here, and I'll highlight one more: "Some cinematic characters have been given microdermabrasion treatments and now have better looking skin."

If you haven't decided whether to play it yet, here's a review of Wasteland 3 to help you make up your mind.

Jody Macgregor
Weekend/AU Editor

Jody's first computer was a Commodore 64, so he remembers having to use a code wheel to play Pool of Radiance. A former music journalist who interviewed everyone from Giorgio Moroder to Trent Reznor, Jody also co-hosted Australia's first radio show about videogames, Zed Games. He's written for Rock Paper Shotgun, The Big Issue, GamesRadar, Zam, Glixel, Five Out of Ten Magazine, and Playboy.com, whose cheques with the bunny logo made for fun conversations at the bank. Jody's first article for PC Gamer was about the audio of Alien Isolation, published in 2015, and since then he's written about why Silent Hill belongs on PC, why Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale is the best fantasy shopkeeper tycoon game, and how weird Lost Ark can get. Jody edited PC Gamer Indie from 2017 to 2018, and he eventually lived up to his promise to play every Warhammer videogame.

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