Thursday, April, 01, 2004 Half-Life 2 to Use Serious Engine 2.0 - Rodzilla - 7:33 AM - Comments - Link to this Item Following the recent Game Developer's Conference, Valve has issued the following press release on the status of Half-Life 2: Half-Life 2 to use Serious Engine 2.0 Bellevue, Wash. - April 1, 2004 - Valve Corporation today announced that their upcoming project, Half-Life 2, is in the process of being converted to the next version of the Serious Engine, Serious Engine 2.0. The company's Founder and Managing Director, Gabe Newell, detailed time constraints and security concerns brought about due to the recent theft of the Source Engine source code from Valve's offices. "It is extremely unfortunate that someone decided they would break into our network and steal the Source engine and much of Half-Life 2 from us, and we have done our best in order to fix much of the damage that was caused," Newell stated, "however, we cannot in good confidence release a secure product in a reasonable time-frame under these circumstances." "I understand this will come as a shock to many of our fans and supporters, and we appreciate all the help provided by the gaming community as a whole following the theft of Half-Life 2," Newell continued, "but this is a necessary step in order to finish Half-Life 2 within the timeframe gamers have demanded, as well as providing a secure platform for mod developers and third-party development houses alike." At the recent Game Developer's Conference in San Jose, California, Valve was in close contact with Croteam after viewing their technology demo. By the end of the conference, Gabe Newell and Roman Ribaric, founder and CEO of Croteam LLC, had signed a licensing agreement. Roman Ribaric was enthusiastic about the partnership formed between Croteam LLC and Valve Corporation. "This is an opportunity to combine the strength of two outstanding software companies, merging the ability of Croteam to create high-quality and robust game engines with the talent of Valve software to create a fully immersive and compelling game experience." Several of Croteam's staff will be working in-house with the Valve development team in order to fully acquaint them with the new Serious Editor, the scripting engine, and other components of Serious Engine 2.0. Half-Life 2 and Serious Sam 2 are both expected to ship Q4 2004. ######### About Valve Corp. Valve is an entertainment software company founded in 1996 by Gabe Newell and Mike Harrington and based in Kirkland, Washington. Valve's debut product, Half-Life, released in November, 1998, has won more than 50 Game of the Year honors worldwide and has been called "a smash hit" by the Wall Street Journal. Half-Life was named "Best PC Game Ever" in the November 1999 issue of PC Gamer, the world's best-selling PC games magazine. Half-Life is published by Sierra Studios. About Croteam LLC Founded in 1993, Croteam is a private, Croatia-based corporation dedicated to developing outstanding, immersive electronic games that surpass conventional technology and deliver compelling and repeatable play. Makers of the award-winning "Serious Sam" series, Croteam is currently developing the highly anticipated sci-fi first-person shooter epic “Serious Sam 2". For more information, surf to www.croteam.com. Check back soon for exclusive screenshots and video on the progress of both of these upcoming games!