Half-Life 2: “Episode 1″ slips a month
Posted by inpheaux on March 26th, 2006 at 4:17 amThe Half-Life 2 single-player expansion pack "Episode 1", formerly titled "Aftermath", has apparently slipped a month. I guess this is the real problem with switching to a primarily-online and developer-controlled distribution structure. You can quite easily change your release date to whatever you want, you don't have to worry about shuffling gold cds to manufacturing and then wait for manufacturing to get cds to stores, it's all just a matter of saying "Hey! It's done! Publish it!".
It seems that's what's being done. Two months ago the release date was April 24th. Now it's May 31st, so says Doug Lombardi, Valve's keeper of official releasedates, in a Game Informer Interview that took place at last week's GDC. Doug went on to clarify that it's still going to cost only $19.99, so that hasn't changed, at least. Gabe Newell also chimed in to say that it took him about 7 hours to get through "Episode 1", so don't think you'll be coughing up $20 for something as long as Lost Coast.
So that's the deal as it stands right now. Half-Life 2: Episode 1, 31 MAY 2006, $19.99. Episode 2 comes "later this year". More episodes may or may not come after that. We'll keep you posted.
Source: Game Informer
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