Dungeon Siege in April of ’02

Yes, it is time for one of those official announcements, but happily, a very good one. In what has to be one of the hottest-looking games in development, Dungeon Siege, according to this press release, is slated to pop onto store shelves sometime in April of next year. Not too bad, just another six months… me GameCube, Wiz 8 and many others should be plenty to keep me occupied in its absence. 🙂 Here’s something to smack on in case yer lazy:

And now, a few words from Chris Taylor himself…

“I am happy to announce that the release of Dungeon Siege will be in the spring of 2002. With the extra time we are not only putting extra polish on the game, but packing it full of extra features. As work continues for the next couple of months, we’ll keep everyone updated in case something changes, but I have to say, we are all very confident in our new date.

“Despite this last month being a very difficult and challenging one for all of us, not everything has been difficult, as several members of the team, including myself, got married! A bunch of us also took some much needed time-off to recharge and regroup so we could drive towards the finish line, and this has allowed us to focus ourselves and return to the task of completing Dungeon Siege.

“The next few months will have us fixing bugs, playing the game, watching people play in labs at both Microsoft and here at Gas Powered Games. We’re very excited about refining the experience, and ensuring that everyone can sit down and play the game without reading the manual, getting help, or experiencing any frustration… especially those who are new to RPGs.

“Recently we added a tutorial mode (yes, all you hard-core players can switch it off right away), that helps those first time players learn all the subtle little things about the interface and control system. And these tips will pop up as you play in the first hour of the game. These sorts of additions, along with the massive amount of tuning and balancing was one of the core reasons for holding the game until this spring. Naturally we had to sneak in some new spells, weapons and armor for good measure too. We have also taken a little extra time to work on a few remaining multiplayer features that we ultimately believe are an integral part of the experience.

“We are proud of what we have created, and are very excited about finally releasing the game this spring. We set out to build a outrageously large, over-the-top action RPG experience that takes the player on a fantastic adventure through a world unlike anyone has seen before, and I am happy to say that we are going to achieve this goal.”

Chris Taylor
President, Gas Powered Games