Lead designer Steve Masters has revealed the devs are hard at it, and the launch delay isn’t time for slacking off as they’re ready to go alpha and start polishing.
Conviction’s levels are ”largely complete” so now it’s time to scour them for problems and ugliness - get them looking great, ”and playing really well.” Masters ”would love” Natal in it.
”Right now we’re about to hit alpha – literally this week,” Masters spills to Joystiq. ”So that means the levels are largely complete, and now it’s just time to polish them up and get them looking really great, and playing really well.”
”I can’t really go into the details there,” he said, referring to dealings with Microsoft and exclusivity with Xbox 360. ”All I can say is that we’re really exploiting the full power of the Microsoft console here, and Microsoft has been tremendous in giving us a lot of support and really helping us to utilize the full power of the 360.”
”I don’t think that we’re ever gonna go to the PS3. But I can’t confirm or deny it.”
Masters also shares his enthusiam for Project Natal, and could it be in a future Splinter Cell? ”I would love to use Natal. I think there are a lot of very cool possibilities with that – everything from doing outrageously interesting educational stuff to really-involving video games.”
Splinter Cell: Conviction has been delayed and will now be released sometime between January and March 2010, on Xbox 360 and PC. See the Comic-Con trailer below.