In a message to Sega fans posted at the company's European blog, High Voltage chief creative officer Eric Nofsinger explains why The Conduit was a muddled, uninteresting jumble, and why the game's sequel won't be.
Nofsinger might not use those exact words, but they are certainly implied in the lengthy message, assuring fans that next time around the developer will do things like rework existing art when new, higher quality art is introduced, create concept art for every aspect of the game, and not include things they aren't particularly thrilled about.
This time, when approaching art direction for Conduit 2 we've made sure never to build anything into our game that we ourselves aren't completely excited about making. And unlike the first game (which had limited concept art), practically every location in Conduit 2 was conceptualized, and then those designs have been scrutinized and reworked, until we truly believe that we are choosing the most inspired locations for our game. We're designing spaces that players will want to fight in! And we're not restricting ourselves to one city in a single part of the world. Conduit 2 spans the entire globe, and we have created far more interesting locations as battlefields for our game.
Wow. It sounds like developing the original Conduit was a complete nightmare. I bet plenty of players wish they knew that before buying it. Still, hindsight is 20/20, and now we've got some foresight to go on for the sequel.
We're doing whatever it takes to make Conduit 2 the very best that it can be because we love the game and our audience. There's a lot more that we still want to accomplish with this game before it ships, and fortunately we still have time to execute on our initial goal to build a game that fully realizes our vision of the Conduit world. We truly hope when you finally get the chance to play the game that you like what you play, hear, and see.
The Conduit 2 - A Message from High Voltage [Sega Europe]