Wipeout Lore - The Story of Wipeout!

[T-301]

Hello. I found a minor detail that I thought you guys would want to know, even though it's probably already known either way.

There are some digital placards in WipEout 2048, near the finish line of Altima, which spell the following lines:

"Mag-Strip failure concerns"
"Will Pir-hana quit the sport?"

The first one not only suggests that MAGEC and their mag-lock technology have been part of AG racing since 2048, but also explains why mag-lock tracks weren't present in the subsequent WipEout titles timeline-wise until they returned way later on in the FX leagues due to reliability problems that needed to be sorted out.

The second one (somewhat) explains why Pirhana didn't show up in the first WipEout after 2048, only returning to the scene in 2097. Perhaps they thought they were lagging behind too much in their designs?

Take a look: https://files.catbox.moe/0urra8.webm?

[Jonny]

Well, the devs had to explain why all the new stuff from post-Fusion times have been present in a game that is set before the very first title. They kinda worked their way around that with these news lines.

[T-301]

Another tidbit.



This one seems to question if barrel rolls should be allowed or not in AG racing. Judging by the lore, they were probably banned after AGRC 2048, until the end of the F9000, where they were since brought back in the FX300.

[Jonny]

FIA-like ruling would read like:

"Any device, system or program designed to harvest energy out of rotational movements by the craft is prohibited"

[T-301]

I bet AG-Systems and their prototype craft drove the AG Racing commission to ban barrel rolls, along with side shifts combat spinning until the FX300. The ship description itself already implies that the ship's high-G capabilities were harmful for pilots due to the modified airbrake-thruster system, and its ability to perform combat spins on normal races probably gave them too much advantage over competitors. This stuff is Triakis before Triakis.

It's funny how we can connect a lot of dots with just a few lines of text in WipEout games.

[Jonny]

Welp, many things are up to the players to connect (one of the reasons why I work on "WipEout Infinity. Not much, but I do), but yeah, the background is kinda interesting.

Though such things origin in design choices made. In this case they wanted a prequel (whyever) and yet keep the gameplay aspects of HD to show off Sony's crossplay thingy.
Hence the game had to be similar to stuff set in the future, while set in a time where it all actually didn't exist yet.
Weapons were downgraded, Mag-Lock failures, barrel roll bans, Pir-hana leaves, etc.

[T-301]

Weapons were downgraded, Mag-Lock failures, barrel roll bans, Pir-hana leaves, etc.

I'll make a (most likely incorrect) stretch and guess that all the prototype craft from 2048 forced new rules to be written when the F3600 came about in some way or another.

FEISAR's prototype made them ban variable thrusters;
AG-SYS's prototype made them ban barrel rolls, side shifts and combat spins;
QIREX's prototype made them tone down weaponry so they couldn't outright destroy ships and endanger pilots due to how unhinged and brutal the combat events were in 2048 (the game itself was tailored to encourage more combat, as said by Liverpool themselves);
Auricom's prototype made them do away with ships that couldn't be stopped;
Pir-hana's prototype made them outright ban auto-accelerating craft with indefinite top speed in normal races due to obvious safety concerns (which even 2048's announcer showed when he described the ship).

Now that I think about it, Belmondo only really suggested an actual standardization of the sport by the end of 2050, didn't he? No wonder everybody was doing all sorts of crazy stuff before then; it had little to no rules. Daniel Chang's death in 2056 must've also strengthened the argument to standardize AG racing into something less suicidal and carrmageddon-ish and more like F1.