Dungeon Siege III Previews, Demo Coming Soon

At this point, most of those that had the chance to get some hands-on time on Obsidian’s action-RPG have already published their previews, but there’s still a couple more.

NZGamer overall seems to like it, though noting that the co-op camera is far from optimal. Here’s a sampling:

When it comes to combat, the game becomes quite challenging early on in the piece. Some of the bosses are tough, and tactics tend to go out the window when you’re surrounded by enemies. It soon became apparent that button mashing while initially effective, ain’t gonna cut it later on. It’s good to see you still need some basic combat strategy to succeed. Dodging is no longer merely a passive ability; you can execute stylish forward rolls to evade enemy attacks, and take up a defensive stance to block incoming damage. Gone is the option to pause combat while you ponder party strategy. but that’s not necessarily a bad thing for a game that aims to keep the adrenaline pumping while you slice and dice your way through the map.

IGN puts together a piece that summarizes the information we have on the game’s protagonists:

Reinhart Manx
Legion soldiers were not just melee soldiers, as Reinhart’s rich lineage attests. A descendant of a long line of Legion mages, magic spells were an integral part of his upbringing. But he’s not your typical archetypal Merlin-like sorcerer. Up close he uses his arcane gauntlet to shock and pummel foes. At range Reinhart is adapt at area-of-effect spells that make quick work of larger armies–just don’t try it when there are enemies within striking distance. Manipulating the elements of destruction and even bending time, his unconventional array of abilities prove invaluable in any situation.

Meanwhile, Square Enix’s director of business development and executive producer, David Hoffman tweets that the game is going to receive a demo:

Who wants a Dungeon Siege III demo? They are cooking in the oven and make the whole house smell simply heavenly but they aren’t done yet!

And later on the Obsidian Entertainment forums gives us a vague idea of the timeframe:

up to marketing but I heard it is soon!

Update: According to the Square Enix newsletter the demo is going to be out on May 31st for the Xbox360 and June 7th for PC (via Steam) and PS3.