Both screenshots seem to take place in fairly typical industrial levels. What other sort of locations and settings will the game have?

Our first set of maps all take place in refinery-style environments. We originally planned on each map having its own completely unique set of assets and fiction, but that turned out to be far too much for the first version. We've always focused on somewhat claustrophobic indoor sci-fi environments and NS2 is no different. The next set of maps we do after launch will include maps from our "biodome" art set, which has a lot of plants and other natural elements integrated with industrial elements.

You have offered pre-sales of the game for the past several months. So far what has the response been like?

Overwhelming. Wonderful. Heart-warming. It outsold our projections by about 10x. Because the game is taking longer than we expected (is anyone surprised?), it turns out we need every single penny to finish the game and actually, more. Funding remains a large challenge for us but the pre-orders have been an enormous help. Thank you so much for your support so far!

The issue of dedicated servers for PC shooters have gotten the spotlight lately. Does Natural Selection 2 have plans to offer dedicated servers for multiplayer?

Like with NS1, we rely on the community to run our game servers. I imagine we'll release the dedicated server (both for Windows and Linux) in advance to make sure there will be plenty running by the time most players arrive.

Are there plans for a beta test for the game and if so when will that happen and what will it contain?

Yes! Both alphas and betas are planned. We'll be releasing the alpha to those that pre-ordered the Special Edition and then we'll release the beta to the rest of the pre-ordering people. The alpha will be pretty stripped down - probably a single map and not all of the abilities, structures or upgrades.

What's the schedule looking like for the game's final release?

We were hoping to release something playable (an alpha at the very least) this Fall, but that's not going to happen. The entire engine and toolset was written by one (amazing!) person and we have individuals doing the work of a small team at another company. Writing our own engine and tools was a lot to bite off for a company of our size and resources, but we're hanging in there. It's looking like early next year right now.

Finally any other hints you can give us about Natural Selection 2?

For all you mappers out there - we are very close to releasing the SketchUp-style real-time level editor and all our environment artwork so you can start building NS2 levels and seeing what our tech can do. We are pumped to see what the mod community does with our tech and will be actively supporting them. (Editor's Note: In a press release that accompanied these screenshots, Unknown Worlds stated the level editor will be released for people who pre-order the game. They also plan to purchase the best third party levels from the community to use in Natural Selection 2.)