Deep Silver will now publish Kickstarted Wasteland 2

InXile Entertainment, the developer behind the very successful Wasteland 2 Kickstarter that raised just under $3,000,000, has announced it is partnering with publisher Deep Silver to distribute the physical copy of the game and the physical Kickstarter backer perks.

“This is a perfect opportunity for inXile: it allows us to continue to focus all of our energy and money into the creative aspects of the game while letting Deep Silver take our game outside of the pure digital space. This has the added bonus of allowing us to spend more of the Kickstarter funds on development while continue to retain all ownership and control“, says Brian Fargo, CEO inXile Entertainment.

Deep Silver has most recently been in the public eye following their announcement of a bloodied female torso in the Collector’s Edition of Dead Island: Riptide, after which they apologised for its existence but continued to sell it regardless upon the game’s launch.

Many Kickstarter backers and commenters have been split in opinion over the latest announcement; with some being angry that there is an inclusion of a publisher at all – especially one with Deep Silver’s recent stigma attached – as well as questioning if this will effect the game’s creative direction.

Interestingly, the announcement of the new publisher stated that: “For inXile, we always intended to use a third party to handle these matters, as we are simply too small a studio to be capable of handling all the award fulfillment details from a practical standpoint.” However, nowhere in the original Kickstarter does it state they ever planned to bring a third party in. In fact, it contradictorily states in the original update that all game publishers “balked” at them at the mere suggestion of Wasteland 2.

Wasteland 2’s current release date goal remains set for October 2013.

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