Dungeon Siege III Previews

Obsidian Entertainment’s Dungeon Siege sequel is the subject of a few more E3 previews, starting with a short blurb over at Gaming Bits:

The third-person action-RPG looks stunning: from the subtle details of fish swimming in ponds to the distant towns on the horizon, Dungeon Siege III is full of ambient, rich and colorful environments that all load in seamlessly (no loading time seen from outside world to cavernous depths!). The lighting looked particularly spectacular. You have a variety of classes to choose from (Archon, Druid, Guardian and more), all of which offer a different gameplay experience. A simple inventory system allows you to manage items, and changes the way your character looks. Drop-in and drop-out co-op gameplay is even supported, so joining up with a friend having another unique class will offer powerful combos against tough bosses. You can shift the camera between three different views, and the camera pulls out automatically when a player joins you (as well as zooms in when they drop out).

Then we have a lengthier piece on Eurogamer:

“We want the game to be about multiplayer, and we want it to be as easy as possible,” says lead designer Nathaniel Chapman, noting that his girlfriend would watch him play Mass Effect 2 to follow the story, and wanted to be able to jump in and take control of Tali. Intriguingly, Obsidian is working on multiplayer aspects to the conversation system, too. “Multiplayer and single-player are not two separate games. They’re totally integrated. That was a very important point for us,” he says.

All the game’s enemies and spells or abilities have been designed with the tactical interdependence of the classes in mind, and there are even explicit combos that can be executed by two classes in tandem, using each other’s strengths to expose enemy weaknesses by forcing them into certain states. The classes, we’re told, are designed for uniqueness over flexibility and will be pretty carefully defined, although you’ll naturally still have some choice over skills as you level up.

And something a bit more modest on Big Download:

The game demo moved into the dungeons in the second half of the demo as we got to see a brief look at Dungeon Siege III’s co-op support. One development signed into the game and took over the other character in the duo and then a few minutes later left again giving the remaining player an AI character. It’s clear that this game will support on the fly co-op with players able to drop in and out anytime they want.

The final part of the demo, naturally, has a boss battle as the two character took on a massive monster that was heavily armored and could move in short but very fast bursts of speed and summon some minions for reinforcement . Our two heroes-gold horders had to slowly cut down the monster’s armor to then make any damage on the creature itself. Naturally this will be just one of many boss battles to come in the full version.