Sega channelling The Conduit

In July, High Voltage Software chief creative officer Eric Nofsinger told GameSpot that his company had to finance its upcoming game The Conduit because publishers weren't expressing a lot of interest in "more serious" Wii games. Interest apparently picked up once the developer started showing the game around in playable form, given that today Sega announced that it has reached a worldwide publishing agreement with High Voltage to release The Conduit in spring 2009.

Originally revealed earlier this year, the sci-fi first-person shooter drops players into Washington, DC in the wake of an attack from a race of insectoid aliens. As a member of the Secret Service, you attempt to stop the invasion while peeling back the layers of governmental conspiracy behind it. The game will also support two peripherals unveiled since its original announcement, the Wii Speak microphone for online multiplayer action and the Wii MotionPlus plug-in for more precise motion controls.

The deal for The Conduit combines two trends that Sega has been following in recent years: working with external developers and Western studios. Sega is publishing a full slate of games from the Clover Studios refugees at PlatinumGames (including the adult-focused Wii game Mad World), and the Japanese company has acquired developers such as San Francisco, California-based Secret Level and British real-time strategy house The Creative Assembly.