Woot! We got a chance to check out Obsidian’s newest game Dungeon Siege III at E3 today, and it fixes all of our loot pet peeves. We’ve got all the details.
Like previous games in the series, Dungeon Siege III is an action-RPG with all that that entails. Loot-gathering, sword fighting, magic and plenty of cool environments and dungeons to do it in. Also of note: this is the first time Obsidian is using the proprietary Onyx engine and it’s the first Western RPG published by Square Enix. And this time, you can play Dungeon Siege on a console! Here is what Nathan Davis, a producer at Obsidian Entertainment had to say. We wanted to make sure we gave you a good multi-player experience with [the game]. We love the idea of sitting on the couch with your friends, getting a pizza, hanging out and kicking a lot of ass and getting a lot of loot and leveling up.
Davis had this to say about the story. At Obsidian, story is one of our wheelhouses. We really made the story in this something that we could be proud of. It was developed by George Ziets, who was the lead creative guy on the Never Winter expansion, which got a lot of critical praise for its story…you are a decedent of the 10th Legion. The 10th Legion has kept the land of Ehb safe for centuries, but thirty years ago, bad stuff happened…there is betrayal and violence…all the things you would expect. They were decimated. As a descendant, you are called forth with a bunch of others to try and bring the Legion back. The land of Ehb is kind of fracturing and falling apart. The first thing that happens is, you get to the gathering point and everyone is dead and the place is on fire. You have to work your way up and build the 10th Legion with some companions and hopefully bring the land of Ehb back together.
There are a total of four playable characters in the game, but two were available for the demo. There is Lucas the warrior, who we were told takes more finesse to play than one might expect for a damage dealer. We got to check out game play with Anjali, a fire spirit. She morphed between human form and flying, flaming haired form. The fiery hair was a really cool touch. They’ve all got special abilities and talents which are customizable. One cool spell of note for Anjali was Immolation. If you upgrade it one way, it can heal by cauterizing the wounds of your allies. Or you can choose to make it a weapon. You can instantly flip between abilities, so you’re not constantly going back and forth to your info screens. By the end of the game, you can have up to nine abilities, as well as a ton of passive abilities.
The multi-player supports 2 players locally or 4 players online. Now here is where this RPG fan got excited…well, more excited. If you want to check your loot or your stats in the middle of game play (you know there is always someone who is in there mucking around in there non-stop), the A.I. takes over for that player while everyone else continues with the battle. And in terms of item management, they’ve streamlined the process and taken out the annoying stuff. There is no weight limit and though you are limited to a particular number of items, it’s a huge one. As you pick up an item, you know immediately who it works best for, what it is and exactly how much gold it’s worth. Best of all, if you do end up with too much loot (woot!) you can instantly turn it into it’s gold equivalent.
The graphics are rich, high fantasy and from what we could see, the game play is everything you’d expect and a lot of fun. For people who have been dying to play this on a console, you don’t have long to wait.
Dungeon Siege III will be released for the PC, but also for Xbox 360 and the PS3 on June 21st, 2011.
