Dungeon Siege delayed

It's over three years now since Total Annihilation designer Chris Taylor founded Gas Powered Games, but it looks like we will have to wait a little longer for their debut title, action role-playing game Dungeon Siege, to be released. A brief statement from Redmond arrived this morning, informing us that "Microsoft and Gas Powered Games have made the careful decision not to release Dungeon Siege in the fall of 2001" as had previously been planned.

Last year delays at Digital Anvil resulted in two titles being dropped by Microsoft and the remainder of the troubled Texan studio being bailed out by the publisher, but today's announcement is apparently aimed to reassure fans that this isn't about to happen again with Gas Powered Games. "Both companies remain extremely excited about the game and are committed to completing the title and bringing the highly anticipated game to store shelves in 2002", according to the statement.

"Our decision to delay the release of Dungeon Siege is one of the toughest we've had to make, but we firmly believe that this is the right choice given that one of the most critical steps in creating an RPG is the tuning and balancing stage", Chris Taylor is quoted as saying. "We've made a promise to build a game that delivers an over-the-top experience, and we'll do whatever it takes to deliver on that promise."

While we applaud the decision to hold back the game to give the developers more time to polish it, you have to worry about what this may mean for Gas Powered Games. Every other celebrity studio that has gone four years without shipping a single title has either imploded or been bought out by its publisher soon afterwards.