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Wasteland

From PCGamingWiki, the wiki about fixing PC games

This page is for the original 1988 game. For the 2020 remaster, see Wasteland Remastered.

Wasteland
Wasteland cover
Developers
Interplay Entertainment
Patched digital re-release Square One Games
Publishers
Retail Electronic Arts
Digital inXile Entertainment
Release dates
DOS 1988
Windows (DOSBox) November 13, 2013[1]
macOS (OS X) (DOSBox) November 13, 2013[1]
Linux (DOSBox) November 13, 2013[1]
Taxonomy
Monetization One-time game purchase
Modes Singleplayer
Pacing Turn-based
Perspectives First-person, Top-down view
Genres Open world, RPG
Themes North America, Post-apocalyptic, Sci-fi
Series Wasteland
Wasteland on HowLongToBeat
Wasteland on IGDB
Wasteland on MobyGames
Wasteland on Wikipedia
Wasteland
Wasteland 1988
Wasteland 2 2014
Wasteland Remastered 2020
Wasteland 3 2020

Wasteland is a singleplayer first-person and top-down view open world and RPG game in the Wasteland series.

General information

Manual
Official support page
Official wiki
GOG.com Community Discussions for game series
GOG.com Support Page
Steam Community Discussions
Mods roundup

Availability

Version differences

The original retail version is a DOS game and requires the manual to progress.
The Interplay 10 Year Anthology version lacks the setup program for resetting the game to the default state while optionally keeping characters and their stats. The Unofficial Wasteland Reset Program provides this missing feature.
Digital distribution versions use a custom build of DOSBox with new features such as showing description paragraphs in-game when prompted to read the manual.

Essential improvements

Utilities

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System Location
DOS <path-to-game>\
Windows %LOCALAPPDATA%\inXile entertainment\Wasteland\<path-to-game> (mounted in DOSBox)[Note 1]
macOS (OS X) <path-to-game> (mounted in DOSBox)[Note 1]
Linux <path-to-game> (mounted in DOSBox)[Note 1]
This game does not follow the XDG Base Directory Specification on Linux.

Save game data location

System Location
DOS <path-to-game>\
Windows %LOCALAPPDATA%\inXile entertainment\Wasteland\
<path-to-game> (mounted in DOSBox)[Note 1]
macOS (OS X) $HOME/Library/Application Support/Wasteland
<path-to-game> (mounted in DOSBox)[Note 1]
Linux $HOME/.wasteland/
<path-to-game> (mounted in DOSBox)[Note 1]
DOS version only allows one save slot.

Save game cloud syncing

System Native Notes
GOG Galaxy
Steam Cloud

Video

Windowed

Works only in the emulated digital release.
Modify configuration file[2]
  1. Go to the configuration file location.
  2. Open wl.conf with a text editor.
  3. Find the line fullscreen=true and set the value to false.
  4. Save the file and close it.

Input

Keyboard and mouse State Notes
Remapping
For DOSBox use the DOSBox Mapper (see the glossary page for other workarounds).
Mouse acceleration
Mouse sensitivity
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support
For DOSBox use the DOSBox Mapper (see the glossary page for other workarounds).
Controller types

Audio

Audio feature State Notes
Separate volume controls
Surround sound
Uses only PC Speaker for audio (mono channel).
Subtitles
Everything is text-based.
Closed captions
See note above.
Mute on focus lost
For DOSBox change the priority background value in the DOSBox configuration file.
Royalty free audio

Localizations

Language UI Audio Sub Notes
English

Issues fixed

Crash when using mouse

This fix will likely be incorporated into a later patch.[citation needed]
Modify executable file[3]
  1. Go to the installation folder.
  2. Open DATA\WLA.BIN with a hex editor such as HxD.
  3. Go to offset 0x5e5.
  4. Change 77 1F to EB 1F.

Notes

This disables a wait loop that could continue infinitely.

Game quits immediately upon launch (digital version)

The issue is mostly reported in cases when the game tries to run in a resolution not supported by the user's monitor.
Run the game in windowed mode[2]

See Windowed.

Other information

API

Technical specs Supported Notes
DOS video modes EGA, CGA, Tandy Also supports composite modes for Tandy and CGA.
Executable 32-bit 64-bit Notes
macOS (OS X)
[4]

System requirements

DOS
Minimum Recommended
Operating system (OS) 3.0
Processor (CPU) Intel 8088
System memory (RAM) 256 KB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 1 MB
Video card (GPU) CGA, EGA, Tandy
Windows
Minimum
Operating system (OS) XP
Processor (CPU)
System memory (RAM) 1 GB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 100 MB
Video card (GPU) DirectX 7.0 compatible
macOS (OS X)
Minimum
Operating system (OS) 10.6
Processor (CPU) 2 GHz
System memory (RAM) 1 GB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 100 MB
Video card (GPU) On-board Intel GFX
Linux
Minimum
Operating system (OS)
Processor (CPU) 2 GHz
System memory (RAM) 1 GB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 100 MB


Notes

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 File/folder structure within the installation folder reflects the path(s) listed for DOS game data.

References