Wasteland 3 is getting permadeath Eurogamer.net If you click on a link and make a purchase we may receive a small commission. Read our editorial policy. Wasteland 3 is getting permadeath Out of ranger. News by Wesley Yin-Poole Deputy Editorial Director Updated on 4 Mar 2021 13 comments Wasteland 3 is getting permadeath as part of a new update coming soon. Patch 1.3.3, titled Death & Taxes, adds permadeath mode as well as an optional difficult skill checks mode, respeccing, new character customisation items, and a raft of improvements and fixes. Watch on YouTube Wasteland 3's permadeath works as you imagine it should: when activated at a game's start, your characters will die good and proper when their health reaches zero. In a post on Wasteland 3's Steam page, developer inXile said permadeath is a single-player only feature that cannot be enabled in multiplayer. "As much fun as is to watch your friends subjected to painful and horrific video game deaths, co-op splits the team down the middle, and one player losing everyone and then watching for (potentially) hours until the other can make it back to Ranger HQ just isn't a good time," inXile said. Of note: you can't disable permadeath once you've opted in at the start of the game. Normally, when one of your party members runs out of life they go into a downed state, and you have a certain number of rounds of combat to bring them back into the battle. If you fail, you can bring them back with a Nitro Spike or a visit to a doc. With permadeath on, however, party members die permanently. When they die, a party member dumps their equipment to the local party's shared inventory, so at least you can rob their corpse. "Once a party member shuffles off their mortal coil, their Party Portrait is removed from the HUD and other game interfaces, and they can no longer be selected or used," inXile explained. "This is because they are dead." If everyone in your party dies, it's game over. Meanwhile, the new difficult skill checks mode increases all skill checks in the game by +2, up to a maximum of 10. This applies to all world interactions, such as locked doors, conversation interactions, hacking and taming checks, item skill requirements on gear, and attribute requirements on gear. That's more than skills, then. "This optional mode was designed to force your Ranger team to hyper-specialise to be successful, making your jack-of-all-trades 'master-of-all' party no longer possible," inXile said. "This is great for a second run-through if you want to be forced into some hard character build decisions." This all sounds welcome for Wasteland 3. I enjoyed the post-apocalyptic role-playing game enough to recommend it in our Wasteland 3 review, despite being rough around the edges. inXile has done well to polish the game post-launch, however, and with this new patch, set to go live at the end of March, Wasteland 3 may well be worth returning to. Become a Eurogamer subscriber and get your first month for £1 Get your first month for £1 (normally £3.99) when you buy a Standard Eurogamer subscription. Enjoy ad-free browsing, merch discounts, our monthly letter from the editor, and show your support with a supporter-exclusive comment flair! Support us View supporter archive More News Google announces cloud gaming Chromebooks less than a fortnight after Stadia shutdown GeForce Now preinstalled. 3 Atari will hold RollerCoaster Tycoon rights for another decade Ups and downs. 7 Lady Dimitrescu will be a tad smaller in Resident Evil Village's Mercenaries DLC Level the playing field. 1 Overwatch 2 suffers another DDoS attack and character roster bugs Mei Mei. 13 Latest Articles Digital Foundry Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090: a new level in graphics performance The Digital Foundry video review - and how the new GPU champion delivers for 4K 120fps gaming. Google announces cloud gaming Chromebooks less than a fortnight after Stadia shutdown GeForce Now preinstalled. 3 Feature Evercore Heroes wants to wind people up the right way "There's less rage at them, because they didn't end your fun." Genshin Impact Path of Gleaming Jade dates, login event rewards Including other anniversary rewards and how to claim them. Supporters Only Premium only Off Topic: Take a minute to appreciate Cookin' with Coolio's incredible scallops recipe. What a great book. Premium only Off Topic: Reading City of Glass in comic form "Where exactly am I going?" Premium only Off Topic: Il Buco is a transporting film about a really big hole Underlands. Off-Topic Netflix handled Sandman brilliantly It was Dreamy. 9 Buy things with globes on them And other lovely Eurogamer merch in our official store! Explore our store