Army Engineers were in the desolate southwestern desert constructing bridges in an area with a number of small survivalist communities and a newly constructed federal death row prison with light industrial facilities. On the day of the cataclysm, a company of U.S. The game is set in an alternate history timeline, in which a nuclear war between the United States and Soviet Union took place in 1998 in relation to an impact event involving a cluster of meteors that sparked a global nuclear war.
The non-player characters in the party each have their own personality, motivations, opinions, and agendas. The player characters are highly customizable and the player's choice of statistics, skills, and appearance gives them an individualized personality. The player's party has room for seven characters, including the four player-designed characters and up to three non-player characters (NPCs). It is a turn-based and party-based role-playing game with tactical combat. Wasteland 2 features a semi-overhead view with a rotatable camera.