this level, which is set in a large castle, the AI had to be rewritten as two enemy units could be right beside one another but not be able to see each other because of a wall between them. Previously, two units standing beside one another would automatically attack. Writing this new code into the AI scripting language proved especially difficult for the programmers. The team also approached the cutscenes differently. In The Fallen Lords, the cutscenes had been created by an American animation studio, but had received a mixed response from both the developers and fans of the game, with some feeling they felt cartoony, and were tonally disconnected from the rest of the game. This was something the team wanted to ensure was not repeated in Soulblighter. As Seropian explains: In terms of the game's graphics, as with The Fallen Lords, each level in Soulblighter is constructed on a polygonal mesh. The mesh used is four times finer than in the original, and hence the graphics are more detailed and smoother. Also like the first game, although the game world itself is fully 3D, the characters populating each level are 2D sprites; those in Soulblighter have many more frames of animation than those in The Fallen Lords, and so move much more smoothly. Explaining why the team stuck with using 2D sprites in a 3D terrain, producer Tuncer Deniz states: Delays Originally scheduled for North American release on November 1, 1998, Bungie were unable to have the game ready in time. According to Tuncer Deniz, the initial release date was missed because of "the time frame given to do the game, which was very small as opposed to most major titles. We added so many new things - ultimately that ends up extending the development cycle". The team then set a release date for just prior to Christmas, meaning the game would need to go gold by the first week of December. By November 13, Bungie were still writing code for individual levels, although lead programmer Jason Regier felt "it seemed there was an end in sight". On November 21, the team held a meeting, discussing whether to continue to aim for the Christmas deadline, or work to incorporate all of the still-evolving gameplay ideas and fix every bug, which would mean almost certainly missing the deadline. Deniz ultimately argued the team should continue to develop the gameplay