InXile Entertainment is expecting to grow under its new parent company, Microsoft. InXile was acquired by Microsoft earlier this month, and the acquisition was announced at Microsoft’s X018 event in Mexico City. InXile Founder and CEO Brian Fargo said that the studio would still be releasing Wasteland 3 on the Sony PS4.
In an interview with Eurogamer, Fargo was open about how the company will change, and how it won’t.
“In the short-term we talk about increasing it [studio size] 30 percent or so. We’re not trying to become multi-hundred-person teams but just filling the holes we’ve been desparately wanting to: having a full-time audio person, having a full-time lighting person, having a cinematics person – these things that could help us improve what we’re doing,” said Fargo.
Fargo also said inXile will be able to pick the games it wants to work on, and that they want to keep making isometric RPGs like Wasteland 2. InXile’s commitments to The Bard’s Tale IV and Wasteland 3 on PS4 should be upheld and those titles will most likely come to Sony’s platform, according to Fargo. He spoke specifically about The Bard’s Tale IV on PS4.
“I… believe so. I believe so. The only reason I hesitate is I can’t remember what we’ve promised on that. […] Microsoft has already been, like, whatever we promised, we do, so that’s absolutely the case,” he said.
Fargo also reaffirmed that inXile would be moving away from crowdfunding, although his consulting position with crowdfunding site Fig was still up in the air. Fargo is hopeful that Microsoft will provide the company the one thing it has desperately needed for its games: time.
“We’re getting more resources and potentially more time depending on what the project is,” said Fargo. “If you look at most of the great developers, from Blizzard to Rockstar, the thing everybody gets in those higher echelons is time. Time is the most precious thing a developer can be given.”
InXile Entertainment and Microsoft’s other recent acquisition, Obsidian Entertainment, are renowned RPG developers. InXile was founded by Fargo in 2002, and developed Wasteland 2, Torment: Tides of Numenera, along with the upcoming Wasteland 3. Next year’s Wasteland 3 will be the first game published by the company while owned by Microsoft.
