Wasteland 3 is a brilliantly-made combination of RPG and tactics gameplay. As the name implies, the story takes us to a post-apocalyptic world of destroyed landscapes, marauding gangs, greed, poverty, and a flavour of fantasy and sci-fi.

We play as a team of rangers, just about the only organisation that keeps up a sense of peace and order in the post-apocalyptic America. However, with supplies in Arizona dwindling, our team heads to Colorado to get a favour from an iron-fisted leader there named The Patriarch. In exchange for his help, he gives us a mission that will take us the whole game - to track down each of his 3 children and bring them to him. Each of his 3 children is highly dangerous and not right in the head, and they are scattered all over the county. In addition to our main mission, we have a task of improving our base of operation and getting stronger, as there are many dangers and challenges that await us ahead.

Both the main and side missions take us to various locations and show us interesting aspects of the game's lore and world-building. I never felt that any of it was shoved down and majority of it I was discovering as I was going about completing the missions. Expect a world that doesn't take itself too seriously and is full of political themes and satire, but also doesn't go over the top with it and keeps it within degrees of realism.

We have two starting rangers, which we can customize if we want, and over the course of the game, we can pick who we want to put into our team. We can have a total of up to 4 hired rangers and also up to any 2 named NPC characters that are story-related and whom we meet over the course of our adventure (and these may decide to leave us in the future if they feel insulted by our moral choices!). From my experience, I found it easier to just pick a team from the start and to just stick with it for the whole game, because each member you pick has certain skill specialities, and you will be upgrading their skills based on what your team needs.

There are many skills that are important for both combat and non-combat situations, so it is ideal that at least one team member is proficient at each skill. You'll have your designated lockpicker, designated de-miner, designated hacker, and so on. There are plenty of situations in the game where non-combat approaches offer you some sort of an advantage, so levelling up those skills is highly important. But you also don't want to neglect combat-related skills either, as you need your people to be proficient in different weapon types. Again, you'll have some that specialise in automatic weapons, some in sniper rifles, some in big guns, and so on. Ideally you'd have a variety, as each weapon type offers different advantages in combat situations.

The combat happens on a grid turn-based style, akin to the familiar XCOM formula. Every team member has a certain number of action points per turn, and different actions spend varying number of those action points. You can shoot multiple times per turn if your action turns allow, or shoot and use an item or a grenade. In the overworld fights, our vehicle can also be used in combat to mow down enemies. It really is fun and should satisfy anyone who's a fan of XCOM-like combat systems.

In addition to all that, there is a plethora of items and weapons to find, crafting system, weapon and armour upgrades, and a bunch of companions to find that follow us around and help us in combat. Companions are not controlled by us and act on their own during the ally turn to attack enemies. They can be people, robots or wild animals that we tame. I often had a big entourage of wild animals, birds and other freakish things follow me around everywhere, which was an amusing sight.

I think Wasteland 3 is both a great tactics game and a darn fine RPG. The story premise is somewhat simple, but the people and situations we come across during our travels are intriguing and show life in the post-apocalyptic world in a fun and engaging manner. And most of all - we have plenty of choices to make, from minor ones that impact only an odd NPC, to major ones that affect the ending. It's one of those games where choices actually matter. Many choices can impact your reputation or trust with certain factions, and this can have a big effect during key moments in the story.

A really worthy aspect to discuss also is the music in the game. In addition to the regular ambient tracks, the game also features covers of many vocal tracks which come in during important scenes in the story, particularly during important story fights. It's incredible really how well these songs fit the scenes and the overall atmosphere of the ravaged American countryside. Can we please have more games in the whole gaming industry that put this much attention to a good soundtrack with songs that fit the important scenes and enhance them? In addition to this, also noteworthy is the brilliant voice acting by major and minor characters.

Visuals don't particularly stand out, but they do their job to make environments look believable. Most places are worn down or destroyed, so don't expect many bright and colourful locations. The UI, however, is colourful and it is also easy to navigate and is informative.

There have at times been occasional minor glitches. Like one time the "combat mode" didn't end even after I defeated all the enemies in an overworld encounter, and so I couldn't get back in my vehicle to continue exploration. Or on an odd occasion you instruct a team member to interact with a tripwire or some other obstacle to disable it and they trigger it instead. This, however, only happened a small handful of times though in my 50+ hours of playing. I do kind of wish it was possible to pause when going into your inventory, as at times teammates get poisoned or burn after combat has finished and continue receiving damage, so you might have to go into inventory and find a remedy item while they continue to take damage. And although your people can be revived, pets and companions are gone for good once they die.

A ~50-hour long RPG with a satisfying progression and fun tactical combat encounters. Wasteland 3 is highly enjoyable. If these genres are your thing, then don't sleep on this one.