The Wastelanders

Lore & Background

The nuclear exchanges that ended the old world did not kill everyone, but they killed the infrastructure, the supply lines, and the social contracts that had held civilization together. In the decades that followed, the scattered survivors—farmers, soldiers, children, and the unskilled alike—clung to life in small, desperate clusters. Some banded together around a charismatic leader or a fortified location; others remained solitary, moving from ruin to ruin in search of clean water and edible food. These are the Wastelanders: not a nation, not an army, but a people defined entirely by survival. Over the generations depicted across the trilogy, the Wastelanders fractured into countless micro-communities, each with its own customs, grudges, and survival strategies. In Wasteland, the player's Demos encounter traders, raiders, and isolated families along the road to the water supply. In Wasteland 2, the landscape is broader and the communities more entrenched, with small warlords and trading posts dotting the irradiated terrain. The Wastelanders are not villains by default, nor heroes. They are the moral texture of the world. A trader might sell you a much-needed water filter at a fair price or try to cheat you. A raider gang might be desperate parents protecting their territory. The games consistently present them as people shaped by scarcity, and the player's choices determine whether those interactions end in cooperation or violence.

In Their Own Story

The dust had a taste—metallic, fine, and endless. Mara wiped it from her lips with the back of a cracked hand and watched the convoy of three wagons roll past the ridge. Wastelanders. Maybe twenty souls in total, a woman at the front with a rifle slung across her back, two children wedged between sacks of dried beans. They moved slow, the way all Wastelanders moved when the water was low and the road was long. Mara counted them, then looked back toward the camp where her brother was already sharpening his blade with a whetstone and a mutter that wasn't quite a prayer. She didn't tell him what she'd seen. Not yet. In the wasteland, information was the only currency that didn't spoil, and she intended to spend it carefully.

Reader's Guide

The Wastelanders are not a single recruitable squad member or a named faction you can join; they are the general population of the post-nuclear world you traverse. Along the road, you encounter Wastelanders—traders, raiders, and isolated families—who provide side quests, trade opportunities, and moral dilemmas. Your squad composition and choices shape whether these encounters end in cooperation or conflict. In Wasteland 2 (2002), the scope widens. You again lead a Demo squad, this time searching for a missing nuclear warhead. The Wastelanders you meet are more entrenched in small communities and trading posts, and the game's branching dialogue gives you more room to negotiate, barter, or threaten. While the Wastelanders are still the common folk you encounter in towns and on the road, the political landscape is more layered, and your decisions as Legion leader ripple through the broader faction conflicts. The general Wastelander population still serves as the moral and economic backbone of the world: they are who you protect, who you trade with, and whose fate reflects your choices.

Did You Know?

• The Wasteland franchise began as a 1988 role-playing game published by Interplay, making it one of the earliest post-apocalyptic RPGs in the medium.
• In Wasteland 3, the player's faction is called the Legion (the Colorado Rangers), distinct from the Demos of the first two games, yet the general Wastelander population remains the connective tissue of the world.
• The Wasteland games were created by George R. Stinnett, who conceived the post-nuclear setting before the franchise became a multi-title series.
• Across all three mainline entries, the core survival resource driving most Wastelander interactions is water, reflecting the arid, irradiated environments of the setting.