Gamespot is reporting that Valve has announced that the much anticipated expansion to Half Life 2, the colorfully named, Half Life 2: Episode One has finally gone gold and will be shipping on June 1st. As if that wasn't enough news to make Half Life fanatics jump for joy, they also gave a rough figure of "later this year" for the expected release of the Half Life 2: Episode Two expansion, and confirmed the existence of Half Life 2: Episode Three for a Holiday 2007 release. I bet they agonized for weeks over what to call each expansion... "do we call it, four even though it's the third?", etc. Insert your own Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch joke here.
Half Life 2: Episode One will retail for $19.99 via both Valve's Steam download service and in retail box form distributed by Electronic Arts. Most interestingly, Episode One will not require buyers to own Half Life 2. Gamespot summed up the situation in Episode One this way;
"Episode One will be rated M for Mature due to sci-fi violence. However, unlike most expansions, it does not require the original game to play. That may be because the game goes outside City 17, the setting of much of Half-Life 2, to follow hero Gordon Freeman and supporting heroine Alyx, who plays a more prominent role this time around." - Gamespot
Definitely a good news day for Half-Life 2 addicts everywhere. Click here to head over to the Gamespot article to get all the juicy details.
