Dungeon Siege III Q&A

Along with Obsidian Entertainment’s Nathaniel Chapman, Gas Powered Games’ Chris Taylor has finally opened up about the change of hands that’s taken place with the Dungeon Siege franchise in a new Q&A over at G4. We don’t really get any new details about the game’s features or mechanics, but it’s still worth reading when you get a chance:

G4: What prompted this return to the Dungeon Siege franchise?

Chris: Yoichi Wada, CEO of Square Enix Japan, he set down a mandate to expand into the West. So they set up the LA office and David Hoffman, our producer and business development guy, went out and visited all the studios. He talked to us about our IPs and what we might be interested in doing with it and we made Supreme Commander 2.

Further to that he said to us, “I was wondering if you guys would be interested in doing something with Dungeon Siege with another developer…At the top of the list is Obsidian.” And I said “Well, look no further. They are the right partner for this and, if they’re available, that’s wonderful.” So the rest is history.

Nathaniel: From Obsidian’s perspective, we’ve always wanted to work with Square and Dungeon Siege is a great franchise to work on, so it was very fortuitous and we were very excited.

G4: So when you got access to the franchise, was there anything you were desperate to add or take away right from the start?

Nathaniel: I think the thing that felt very natural for us to add was what we’re doing with story and companion and choice and consequence of dialogue. That felt like something that would bring a lot of value and the trick was to figure out how to do that without breaking what made Dungeon Siege great: the fast paced combat. So, that’s been one of the bigger additions and something we’ve been excited to add to the game.

There have been a lot of other things that we’ve thought about keeping or changing, but really it’s been very important to us that we stay true to what made Dungeon Siege great, like fast paced, fun gameplay with a lot of loot.