It has been confirmed that Half Life 2 will make its first appearance during the E3 this year. Five years after the release of the original Half-Life, a game that changed the face of gaming, its sequel is about to make its delayed, yet much anticipated debut.
The timing has been chosen in such a way that the release should coincide, almost to the day, with that of the original title. That means that it is expected before the end of 2003. The game has been rumoured to be in development for a year now but no hard evidence of its progress had surfaced. Just as it was about to become another Duke Nukem Forever case Valve have given us something solid on it.
The question in everyone's mind however, is what exactly can Valve come up with in order to maintain the gaming legend that is Half Life. It would seem that in the past five years the face of gaming has greatly changed, it remains for Valve to prove if they still have the recipe to follow-up such a success.
Another question looking for an answer is who exactly will publish the game. In a very busy month for them, Valve have announced a new publishing partnership with Activision but have not completely severed ties with Sierra and there's Steam, Valve's attempt to bypass publishers completely delivering content to gamers direct.
Activision are set to deliver Day of Defeat for Valve pretty soon but Sierra's experience with Valve could prove a significant advantage.
Too many questions too soon however, hopefully Valve will oblige everyone at this year's E3.
