Dungeon Siege III Interview

Rock, Paper, Shotgun continues to roll out more GamesCom coverage, with their latest article being a Q&A with Gas Powered Games’ Chris Taylor about Dungeon Siege III and the history of the franchise as a whole.

RPS: So, what’s happening with Dungeon Siege 3?

Chris Taylor: Well, my position on the project is like a, Creative Consultant, given my role in the creation of the franchise. Square Enix asked how we’d like to work in collaboration with another studio that they’d found, and I said (That’s terrific, who have you got in mind,) and they said Obsidian! And I said (That’s perfect! Look no further. You’ve found the best studio for the job. The guys are so talented, and they totally get it, and their working story is right on the money.) So I was pretty happy with that.

The next step was that they went through all of our lore, even the stuff that people never hear about- the reason why there’s a Stonebridge, or what have you, who’s the 10th Legion, who’s The Empire of Stars- and then they create their own extension on that fiction, building their own story off of that.

So what I do is I read through all of their material, and I turn it around 180 degrees, and then I provide some editorial feedback for them.

…

RPS: So! How do you feel about Dungeon Siege, looking back on it?

CT: I think we made a game that was bigger than it needed to be, and that delivered more hours of gameplay than people technically wanted. It’s important that people get through a game. If somebody stops playing because of the sheer, daunting size of it, they don’t advertise the game to their friends, which is a really interesting byproduct of game completion.

Think about a game that you don’t get all the way through. You don’t talk about it. But the game you get all the way through in 8 hours, you come to the office on Monday and say (Yeah, I got through this, this and this.) (How was it?) (Pretty good.) (Can I borrow it? Ah, I’m gonna pick up a copy on my way home.)

But when you don’t finish a game, these kinds of conversations don’t happen. You don’t market it to your friends.

On the flip side, a 200+ hour game like Baldur’s Gate II gets talked about and cherished for a decade (or more) instead of a day. I guess every developer these days just wants to make a game that people forget about 24 hours later.