At E3, we were shown an early version of the game, which was presented to the press for the first time. Chris Taylor and his team let you play with Seth Walker, a hero who (and this apparently hasn’t changed) has to save the world, or rather humanity. A few centuries from now, people are leaving Earth in search of a new place to settle. Unfortunately, the exodus notifies an alien race of our presence and they plan to wipe us out. The trailer we got to see reminded us of Battlestar Galactica.

Somewhat like that series, there is only one colonization ship that manages to flee (and that’s not the only comparison one can make with BSG). On this ship the future of the human race depends. Too bad the aliens discover the ship and drop some units in it. Your mission - the entire game will take place on the ship - is to track those bastards down and exterminate them. Rest assured, the creators have confirmed that there will be all kinds of surroundings in the game: natural environments like forests, gigantic constructions and close corridors. The whole range in other words.

Among the things that caught our attention was the fact that the graphical engine was able to cope with a lot of vertical movement: balconies, open floors and elevators were all present. This should prove useful in giving units on top floors a tactical advantage. The helpful camera shows you what’s coming and it gets rid of those typical flat RPG surroundings. Also an eye-catcher is how dynamically the levels are created and not just out of prefab ‘building blocks’; for instance there are corridors which are fairly long and bend a bit over their whole length instead of working with angles or fixed gradations.

The team put extra emphasis on the skill and moral systems. You will have the ability to enhance, expand your character in a number of different ways and you will have to choose between applying cybernetic enhancements to your avatar (i.e. replacing his arm with a metal one) or not. If you select the first, you’ll end up more powerful but lose a part of your humanity, which will in turn have an impact on the storyline and reactions of NPCs. Some players will have been fully evolved into a robot by the end of the game, while others will still possess their body parts and be able to learn different skills.

Personalizing your avatar comes in a large amount of different ways. There are a number of skills which have nothing to do with cybernetics; you can collect and use various types of armour and weapons and there’s even your personal droid. The latter has no personality and can be adapted in both aggressive or defensive ways by replacing its parts and changing its appearance. The robot quickly becomes a ‘friend’ that you don't want to lose. It will also play a role in the multiplayer mode of the game. It even reminded me of Dog from Half-Life 2 in a way.

The campaign is clearly the focus of Space Siege, but multiplayer hasn't been forgotten. The idea is to let you play with your friends on new missions in new surroundings and even further personalize your character. Co-op is the codeword and you’ll be able to play and replay the game by changing the difficulty, thus also increasing the rewards..

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