Finally we came to the six months or so of the project where we really buckled down and got serious about shipping the game. Though past experience had demonstrated how powerful this phase of development can be, it was nonetheless surprising just how much we accomplished during this time. Knowing that you can no longer rely on “getting to” things and you’re no longer able to “do it later” means that everything that’s accomplished needs to be solid and shippable. After many months of underlying development, the designers and artists finally knew exactly what they had to work with and were comfortable enough with the strengths and weaknesses of those tools to know exactly what they could accomplish.