Dungeon Siege III Previews

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Written by Brother None on June 18th, 2010

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The moment Obsidian booted up the demo portion of Dungeon Siege III during our eyes-on session you could tell some serious work had been put into bringing the world of DSIII to life. A nearby pond rippled as fish swam just beneath the glittering surface. The lush surroundings popped off the screen as tiny particles twinkled in the sunlight. What I'm saying is, the game looks gorgeous. From there, Obsidian took us through a few combat scenarios to demonstrate the game's action-centric gameplay. There will be plenty of loot to find, dungeons to crawl through and classes to upgrade and choose from, but the game clearly wants to use the action as the primary hook. And rightfully so, since the animations are fluid, and thanks to PhysX, enemies and objects react dynamically when you interact with them.

Along with the new control scheme comes the promise that Obsidian wants to make Dungeon Siege 3 a "fun and actionable" game that is easy to pick up and play, but that also has enough to keep RPG fans continuing to hunt for loot and slay more powerful monsters. There will be some dialogue in Dungeon Siege 3 - and the Onyx engine is set up to have a Mass Effect-style dialogue wheel - but Obsidian is keeping the focus toward the action more in Dungeon Siege. That's not to say that there won't be story and dialogue, but much of the dialogue will not be presented in cutscenes, but rather to the player while they explore the dungeons.

Inside the dungeons, players will have access to multiple classes, each with two different stances. We were shown the example of the Guardian class, which functions as the tank. The two styles are a one-handed with shield, which is a more defensive, quick-to-attack stance, and the two-handed style, which bestows players with larger and more powerful AoE attacks. Players can develop both of these styles, but they will not be shoehorned into either of them, as they can be swapped at will. The combat itself looks smooth, too, so players shouldn't have to worry too much about hitting the wall during their ass-kicking sessions. There's no worrying about hitting the invisible wall of loading, either - all of Dungeon Siege 3's zones are streaming.

One of the best features of the game is the lack of loading times. The environments are constantly being streamed through, so players can take their characters in and out of different environments seamlessly. This fact alone has me the most intrigued to try it when I can.

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