inexperienced with games development to undertake lead and manager positions within Elixir Studios. Further issues in the development process resulted from the close involvement of founder Demis Hassabis in all stages of production. In acting as lead designer, CEO and producer, Hassabis curated the game's vision in a way that led to direct decision-making over critical design aspects of the game. Hassabis ultimately decided to step down from his role as CEO of Elixir Studios during production in May 2003, to focus on involvement in the development process. Delays to Republic led the Elixir Studios development team to restrict the ambitious scope of the game. Revisions to the scope included the number of locations, with the concept of "hundreds of cities and towns" to a district-based system within a single city. Furthermore, the level of detail advertised early in the game, citing "thousands of factions, organizations and parties to subvert and control, each with their own goals and powers" was profoundly simplified to a total of ten distinctive factions. Following major delays, Republic reached its beta testing stage in July 2003, with final mastering of the game completed on August 8, 2003, and the game launched worldwide by Eidos Interactive on August 29, reflecting a development cycle of four years. Marketing Republic experienced significant media hype arising from how its political simulation mechanics and level of graphical detail were marketed to the press, and significant coverage of the game at events such as E3. Many outlets were impressed by the scope of previews of the game, and shared predictions that the game would be "the most ambitious game ever", "a landmark moment in strategy gaming", and "a gaming milestone and stunning paradigm shift in games technology". Initial previews of Republic in 2000 focused upon the purported level of detail behind the game's engine, the "Totality Engine". Described as "the most advanced graphics engine ever seen, (with) no upper bound of on the number of polygons and objects", it was claimed the game could "render scenes with an unlimited number of polygons in real time". Tech demonstrations of Republic at this time showcased a high polygonal level of detail, with the claim that players would be able to zoom smoothly from the buildings in Novistrana to assets such as flowers upon the balconies of buildings with no loss of detail. The game was further purported to have artificial intelligence that would