In 2002, Gas Powered Games released Dungeon Siege, followed in 2005 by Dungeon Siege 2. The 3D fantasy RPGs, for PC and Mac, developed a loyal following and a devoted mod community.
Now the creators of Dungeon Siege are producing Space Siege, a sci-fi spin-off of their successful fantasy franchise. Aboard a massive colony ship, the hero defends against alien intruders with the help of a robotic sidekick and his own cybernetic abilities. Players can take the “pure” path, upgrading their robot ally; or they can lose their humanity by accepting further cybernetic upgrades.
Like Dungeon Siege, Space Siege will feature online multiplayer.
I spoke with three members of the Space Siege team: game designer Daniel Achterman, producer Bert Bingham and art director Kevin Pun.
Are fans of Dungeon Siege going to be pleasantly surprised with this game? What are the similarities?
Bert Bingham: We jumped at the opportunity to take on a sci-fi-based RPG using all that we had learned from the Dungeon Sieges. Pop culture is rich with imagery to pull from, so rich that we forced ourselves to keep it constrained to the environments of one giant starship rather than throw in the unlimited variability of alien landscapes. Players will certainly notice a similarity in the fidelity of UI control and displays, the mouse-driven style of gameplay, and the angle that you control your character from. Also the classic strength of the Siege engines has been to display true vertical landscapes, [which] really puts some of the scenery and gameplay over the top.
What is unique about the story in Space Siege? What makes it different from other sci fi games, plot-wise?
Bingham: As a departure from our Dungeon Siege roots, we chose to tell a more intimate story about a single person. Our main character, Seth Walker, is faced with trying to preserve the last surviving humans from an overwhelming alien attack, while facing the moral dilemma of sacrificing himself to cybernetic augmentation to even the odds. Without going into much more detail, the fact that the NPC interaction, and the story itself, changes based on your leveling choices puts this game into a lightly tread realm.
Is it going to be PC-only, or are you considering console ports?
Bingham: The initial release of the game will only be for PC, but Gaspowered Games is continually pressured to extend our offerings to other consoles; mostly because the redundancy of UI elements has made us easier to port than other PC games in our realm.
What kind of a look and feel can we expect, and what are the art director’s influences?
Kevin Pun: I started in the games industry since the early 90s and have been with GPG almost since the beginning. Some of the titles that I worked on included: Total Annihilation, Supreme Commander, Dungeon Siege and Dungeon Siege II. The visuals of Space Siege are unique because the adventure takes place entirely on the gigantic colony ship, the ISCS Armstrong. The scale of the ship is so over-the-top that it has its own tram system, and its vertical design is taller than the tallest skyscrapers. As far as influences go, I worked with an extremely talented team and we tried hard to create a fresh look for the project instead of copying an existing style. With that said, one of my favorite artists is Ron Cobb. He was responsible for designing Conan the Barbarian and the non-Giger parts of Alien.
Give me a little background on your company, and on the members of the design team.
Bingham: Gas Powered Games has been operating under Chris Taylor’s design influence since 1998, long before our original release, Dungeon Siege, hit the shelves. The design team for Space Siege is headed up by Daniel Achterman, who comes from a traditional RPG background, and is heavily influenced by Chris Taylor, who brings his magic sauce to the mix. Between Daniel’s ultra-long-term strategic planning, and Chris’ spur-of-the-moment inspirations, the rest of the design team is kept hopping, pretty much full-time.
Was the idea of balancing cybernetics vs. humanity inspired by any particular literature or films?
Daniel Achterman: I wouldn’t say that the cybernetics vs. humanity theme was inspired by a particular film, but the idea of becoming something you hate in order to defeat evil is all over stories in sci-fi, fantasy, and even westerns. It’s right up front in something like Robocop, but I think it’s more interesting in something like Unforgiven, where Clint Eastwood chose to embrace a very dark part of himself to avenge his friend. It’s that choice element that’s most interesting, and that plays into interactive media like games so well.
I understand this game has a very different interface from Dungeon Siege. What changes are you making and why?
Achterman: Space Siege has a much simpler interface than the Dungeon Siege games because you’re not controlling a party of characters. By focusing on a single character, we can create much tighter controls and give the hero a bigger variety of special abilities than the characters in Dungeon Siege had. Dodging away from grenades before they explode feels REALLY good.
What can you tell me about the alien AI? What are you doing to make the enemies more intelligent?
Achterman: Our goal with enemies in Space Siege is to make them “interesting” more than to make them “intelligent”. A lot of action RPGs have enemies that just run up to you and attack until you kill them. Enemies in Space Siege have more tricks up their sleeves, like a special attack that you should avoid, or the ability to regenerate health if you give them the chance. So groups of enemies can make interesting combinations. If we wanted to make enemies in a game like this REALLY smart, they’d all run away from you and gather up all their friends at once, then attack you with a horde of 50 or something, but that wouldn’t be terribly fun, so we’re leaning away from giving the enemies Ph.Ds.
How will verbal interaction with NPCs be handled?Achterman: Seth (our hero) has a group of companions that give him advice and advance the story while he explores the ship. They can communicate with him at any time through his headset, so the game doesn’t pause or anything while he talks to them. Imagine the journals from Bioshock, where you can wander around and do stuff while you listen to them, except they’re conversations instead of one-sided monologues. It’s a much more immersive way to tell a story than the “dungeons are for fighting and town is for story” structure.
Have you reached the point of thinking about the music?
Achterman: Oh yes. We have a composer and everything! David Arkenstone is really pushing the music in the game, and it’s sounding great. It’s very cinematic and sweeping, with a lot of melody and grandeur. This is an exciting action game, so you want the music to really grab you and pull you in, and his does.
Space Siege is expected to drop Winter 2008.
Thanks to Paul Levy.
