Yesterday, Josh Olson, producer of the upcoming Nintendo Wii exclusive, Conduit 2, was interviewed about the title. Here at Game Rant we've got all the juicy details that you need to know.

General Details

On dropping 'The' from Conduit 2:

Nice catch! It’s Conduit 2. The ‘THE’ got a bit clunky — too much of a mouthful — and we always referred to it as Conduit 2 internally. It flows better and just kinda stuck.

On development and storyline:

[Development on Conduit 2] started up pretty much right after the first title shipped — June of 2009. The story picks up right after the first left off, with Agent Ford traveling through the conduit in pursuit of Adams in his quest to rid the planet of these alien puppet-masters. It’s gripping stuff.

I'm not sure I'd go that far, but hey -- he's got to say these things, right? It's probably even in his contract.

On new (and old) weapons:

We have all of the FPS staples already in place from Conduit 1 — the pistol, the SMG, the assault rifle, the shotgun, the rocket launcher — so we focused on more creative, fun weapons in Conduit 2 by really embracing the sci-fi. We’ve added a true sniper rifle in the form of the Phase Rifle. It also can be tuned to shoot through walls. Great fun — and our designers are having even more fun trying to balance it! We’ll get there. We have a deployable turret that can be used to auto-target and fire remotely, or the player can take more control and engage targets directly through the weapon’s camera. There’s also the Vortex Blaster, which creates a shield in front of the player that catches incoming projectiles, be they bullets, shotgun pellets, grenades, or rockets, and suspends them in the air in front of the player. You can then fire them back on your attacker — there’s nothing really as satisfying as getting a kill using your attacker’s own ammunition. There are more still that we’re not quite ready to talk about yet. We’ve also revisited all of the Conduit 1 weapons and have added an alt-fire functionality to each — the TPC Launcher from Conduit 1, for example, now can be set to fire proximity mines in addition to the point detonation canisters it fired in the first game.

On a better implementation of The All-Seeing Eye:

The ASE didn’t quite come together in The Conduit. It was used for both gameplay as well as for exploration. It’s much more heavily involved in the exploration aspects this time around and is similar to the visor in Metroid Prime. Coupled with our Data Log, there are a lot more conspiracy objects and story elements, as well as items that can be found to open up unlockables for both single and multiplayer.

On customizable controls and Motion Plus:

We don’t plan on messing with a good thing. [Customizable controls are] staying intact with the addition of a few more things for players to play around with.
We played around with [Motion Plus] a lot during the development of Conduit 1 — and probably said a bit too much as we ultimately decided to not include it into the first game. We’re still evaluating it for Conduit 2, but any integration wouldn’t be mandatory and would serve only to supplement the core experience. We’re first and foremost a shooter with a focus on keeping the pointer on the screen — we’re not considering any melee weapons that would make use of its added fidelity.

Multiplayer Details

It appears that Conduit 2 will employ a perks/upgrades system, similar to Modern Warfare 2 or Battlefield: Bad Company 2, and Olson was keen to explain how the system worked:

We have around 30 suit upgrades currently implemented and continue to play around with different ideas. They run the gamut. The purpose of the class system is two-fold — we want players to be able to quickly switch to an alternate class with player-defined weapons and upgrades during a match, saving the hassle of navigating menus, as well as the ability to craft specific characters to match different play styles. If I wanted to be a medic, for example, I’d probably pick Reverse Damage (Shooting allies heals them), Field Medicine (Doubles revive times), and Robot Legs (Unlimited sprint) among my perks. If I wanted to be a tank, I’d pick Heavy Armor (Damage reduction at a cost to movement speed), Ammo Belt (Two extra magazines), and Improved Bullet Damage. Not happy with my current class? Switch it in the Spectate Screen or Pause Menu and respawn with the new class and its associated weapons and upgrades.

Finally, Olson teased with a few details about the game's new Co-op mode, "Team Invasion":

Team Invasion mode allows up to four players (either online or locally via splitscreen) to take on AI opponents and complete a variety of objectives across a variety of maps. While its focus is on cooperative gameplay, it’s also fun to have that competitive element among your friends and see who the better player is by tying it into our scoring and currency systems.

In other words, Conduit 2 is shaping up to be something very cool indeed. Although the first title was admittedly hit-and-miss -- with a solid engine already in place and a dedicated team working for over a year and a half to put the title out, Conduit 2 certainly seems a game that will kick-ass and start another slew of 'hardcore' FPS titles finding their way onto the Wii.

Conduit 2 is a Wii exclusive, and will be available in stores Q4 2010.

Source: NintendoLife