Putting the science back in Wasteland 2's science fiction

Ars Technica » Scientific Method 2012-11-06

Aurich Lawson

In the modern game industry, the term "realism" gets thrown around in a lot. A critic might praise the realistic physics in a game where faster-than-light spaceships carry players to fight building-sized bug-aliens, for instance. Or a developer might talk up the accuracy and realism of the weapon selection in a military shooter where a character can get shot in the face five times and be just fine 10 seconds later. There are obviously some limits to exactly how much realism we want in our escapist fantasy.

Still, it might be nice if the fantastical worlds we play in were at least plausible, if not exactly "realistic." That's where Thwacke Consulting comes in. The recently formed firm has set up a wide-ranging team of academic experts in fields ranging from geology and biology to nanotechnlogy and particle physics. Their goal: to provide scientific reference material to help flesh out even the most implausible fictional game worlds, a goal they'll try to realize for the first time with the post-apocalyptic nuclear hellscape of InXile Entertainment's Wasteland 2 Kickstarter project.

After a year and a half of mulling over the idea, Thwacke's Sebastian Alvarado officially set up shop in April. He was pushed by a frustration with games that tend to use science and technology as a kind of unexplained magic to make things work in a fictional world. Take the "genetic memories" that power the time-spanning animus in the Assassin's Creed games. Alvarado, an expert in evolutionary genetics himself, says there's actually something to the concept of passing down learning through genes. Still, "DNA is such an easy cop-out these days," he told Ars. "It's an easy way to explain all that, and they just expect the player to say, 'Well he said DNA so now I have to buy the story.' It's like a magic gateway."

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