Hot on the heels of substantial layoffs, Obsidian Entertainment has placed Dungeon Siege 3 director Richard Taylor at the helm of a new title, leading to speculation that Dungeon Siege 4 may be on the way.
Taylor's LinkedIn page shows that he worked as the lead systems designer on an unannounced project up until March 2012, at which point he became projectdDirector of another, presumably different title.
Given Taylor's history, the easy assumption is that Obsidian has begun work on another entry in the Dungeon Siege franchise. Still Dungeon Siege III was met with middling reviews and relatively modest sales, so it's hardly the only option.
On Wednesday, news broke that Obsidian had laid off between 20 and 30 employees, allegedly following the cancellation of a project for the next generation Xbox. According to a report from Joystiq, the studio "desperately needed" the title to survive and CEO Feargus Urquhart was noticably affected by the cancellation.
Dungeon Siege 4 or not, this new project may be a sign that things are looking up for Obsidian, if they've already managed to secure another project. On the flipside, it may also be something of a last ditch effort by the studio, funneling resources into development on a game in the hopes that a publisher will pick it up somewhere down the line.
