Vlambeer's Wasteland Kings is now Vlambeer's Nuclear Throne, still looks great

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Wasteland Kings, Vlambeer's post-apocalyptic roguelikelikelikelike is no more. It has ceased to be, bereft of life - but in its place you'll find the eerily similar Nuclear Throne. Upon closer inspection, it's the same damn game , only with a brand new name that couldn't possibly be misinterpreted as having something to do with the revived Wasteland series. If you don't believe me, see/hear it in Vlambeer's own words below (skip to the 32-minute mark), along with a bonus explanation for the game's sudden remonikering.

Vlambeer's Rami Ismail explained the decision in the following blog post . "We're announcing today that Wasteland Kings, the project of which we've been livestreaming development for the past few weeks, will from now on be named 'Nuclear Throne'. It's a bit of an haphazard announcement, with Justin Chan's beautiful artwork above still not being finished, without us having a new logo and before we've been able to properly change the name on all the platforms officially, but we thought that if we're doing open development we might just as well be open about it."

You may have noticed that 'Wasteland Kings' and 'Wasteland 2' share a word in common, and given the similar subject matter I guess it does make a little sense that someone might worry about potential confusion between the two. In this case Vlambeer "were contacted by a Dutch employee of InXile Entertainment, the studio behind 1988 title Wasteland and the recent Kickstarter for Wasteland 2. They explained that InXile CEO Brian Fargo and some of the team were worried about possible brand confusion and argued that Wasteland Kings could be misinterpreted as a title in the 'Wasteland' franchise."

Thankfully, the issue was revolved amicably between both parties over email/Skype, without cease-and-desist-wielding lawyers getting involved. The polar opposite of that whole Scrolls/Elder Scrolls thing, then.

Tom Sykes
Tom Sykes

Tom loves exploring in games, whether it’s going the wrong way in a platformer or burgling an apartment in Deus Ex. His favourite game worlds—Stalker, Dark Souls, Thief—have an atmosphere you could wallop with a blackjack. He enjoys horror, adventure, puzzle games and RPGs, and played the Japanese version of Final Fantasy VIII with a translated script he printed off from the internet. Tom has been writing about free games for PC Gamer since 2012. If he were packing for a desert island, he’d take his giant Columbo boxset and a laptop stuffed with PuzzleScript games.