Skewed and Reviewed recently conducted an interview with Sarah Boulian, Erik Johnson, and Daniel Achterman of the Dungeon Siege II development team. The discussion covered a variety of topics, from gameplay, to the connection between Dungeon Siege titles, and more.

Talking about the game's story, Sarah Boulian revealed that the game takes place roughly one century after Dungeon Siege on the continent of Aranna. She said, "While both games are part of the same universe, they are each stand-alone stories with unique characters and events. Even if you missed out on Dungeon Siege, you can easily get into Dungeon Siege II." Another connection to the original lies in the leveling system, as players gain experience the same way they did before. Again like the original, what type of weapon a character uses most will gradually become his or her area of expertise.

Moving from similarities to differences, Daniel Achterman raved of the interface, "The interface for Dungeon Siege II is gorgeous, and it's been simplified a lot. The focus of the interface is to make it easy to control a party of adventurers simultaneously, so the entire party remains selected at all times, and it's possible to select weapons or spells for multiple characters by pressing a single hotkey." He also noted, "There are [now] all kinds of pets, each specializing in different abilities. There are ranged pets, healing pets, defensive pets, damage pets, and more. Pets are less flexible than normal characters, but nothing can beat a pet in its specialty. Pets are also the only characters with emanations that power up any nearby allies."

You can check out the full interview by clicking here. Dungeon Siege II will ship in mid August with a price of $49.99.