During an extensive discussion with PlayStation Universe, Under Siege Producer Filipe Pina talked about the units and bosses in Seed Studios’ upcoming PSN real-time strategy game.
Players can play as a variety of races at once. In the narrative, these cooperative races were previously hostile, but have united to battle a powerful new enemy.
"This means that in Under Siege, you can mix and match races," said Pina. "You don’t choose ‘humans’ or ‘mekitus’ in multiplayer or single-player, you have them all at the same time."
"Humans have the standard units of soldier, archer, and gunner," he said. "Archers can also cure from time to time. Each unit has an ability no other unit possesses. So archers are the only ones firing arrows, and so on. The unit I think everyone likes the most is one of the Shifters."
That unit happens to be the Void Shifter, a magic user who can generate a deflecting shield. Since the game is physics-based, everything thrown or cast at the shield bounces off in different, physics-driven directions and angles. The Void Shifter also has a magic orb that acts like a turret.
"He can leave it in one place and within range of every enemy that gets shot — and I mean every enemy," said Pina. "If 20 guys are around the orb, it fires 20 shots — it is very tactical. You have to be careful, though, as all units have friendly fire."
Pina went on to discuss the bosses of Under Siege, the first of which is a Giant Golem.
"The first boss appears at the end of the first chapter. He is bigger than everyone else, and from that point on they just keep getting bigger," laughed Pina. "Like a boss!"
The fresh-faced Seed Studios, based in Porto, Portugal, is the first video game studio in the country to develop a game for Xbox or PlayStation, said Pina. For $19.99 USD, the PlayStation Network exclusive offers a chock-full feature set including 1080p visuals, video recording, in-game video chat, a screenshot function, custom music, and a platinum trophy.
The best feature of all, however, may be Under Siege’s extensive ‘Editor’ suite, which is the exact same toolset that Seed Studios used to create the campaign. A PlayStation Network exclusive, it aims to the the LittleBigPlanet of real-time strategy. We’ll have a lot more on that soon, so stay tuned for additional coverage.
Under Siege invades the North American PlayStation Network on May 3, 2011.