More Devil's Third coming early 2012

TOKYO--Early last year, Dead or Alive creator Tomonobu Itagaki revealed he would be taking up a chief technical officer role at Valhalla Game Studios, following the settlement of a long-standing lawsuit with former employer Tecmo.

The former Tecmo developer then revealed that his first project with Valhalla will be a third-person shooter for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 called Devil's Third, an announcement made during last year's Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles.

Since the announcement of the title in June 2010, Itagaki has kept relatively quiet on the project. Now, it seems he is nearly ready to share more details.

Speaking to Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu, and as translated by Japanese gaming news site Andria Sang, Itagaki revealed the game is missing from this year's Tokyo Game Show due to a PR strategy surrounding the release schedule for the game.

However, Itagaki assured Famitsu readers that development on Devil's Third is progressing well, saying it has progressed to the 20 percent to 30 percent completion state, and it has become even higher tempo. According to Itagaki, the game's player count has increased since it was last shown. He's only promising 16-player support in the final game but is hoping the development team can make it support 32-player matches.

Itagaki also revealed that he will be showing off a completely new level of Devil's Third sometime in early 2012.