Gas Powered Games initiates Space Siege

The action role-playing game genre is almost interchangeable with the phrase "dungeon crawler," having exploded in the wake of Blizzard's successful Diablo series. Now the creators of one of the more notable post-Diablo dungeon crawlers are looking to bring the genre into the far-flung future.

Sega today announced that it will be publishing Gas Powered Games' spiritual successor to the Dungeon Siege franchise. Scheduled for release on the PC early next year, Space Siege casts the player as a cybernetics engineer on a massive ship carrying some of the last survivors of the human race.

Throughout the game, players will have the opportunity to install cybernetic upgrades that will convey bonuses, but at the cost of the engineer's own humanity. This will factor into both the storyline and the gameplay, as an unenhanced human will have to emphasize strategies different from those of a cybernetically augmented character. Space Siege will also support multiplayer action with a four-player co-op mode that has a separate mission structure from the single-player campaign.

Originally appearing on the PC in 2002, Space Siege predecessor Dungeon Siege spawned an expansion pack, a sequel (which had its own expansion), a PlayStation Portable spin-off, and even an Uwe Boll movie starring Ray Liotta (Goodfellas, Operation Dumbo Drop) and Jason Statham (Crank, Snatch).

Space Siege is currently set for release in the first quarter of 2008 in North America and Europe.