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For six years, the Internet Nexus served as my technology blog, but I've since started blogging at the SuperSite Blog instead. If you're looking for the blog, please head there. --Paul

Friday, March 09, 2007

Valve: Half-Life 2 Episode 2 Will Be Longer

As it should be, given the wait. Fringe Drinking (?) reports:

For all the Half-Life 2 fans out there that are bummed about the next installment of HL2 Episodes being delayed until the fall, I have some news that might cheer you up a little: you’ll get more content and gameplay in Episode 2.

According to Doug Lombari, director of marketing at Valve, the next Half-Life 2 episode will be noticeably longer than the first. “Episode 1 was about six hours of gameplay, and Episode 2 will be closer to eight hours of gameplay,” Lombardi said. Valve also said that despite the delay of Episode 2, the development cycle for the episodic content was getting shorter.

“Episode 1 took 18 months to complete and Episode 2 will end up being about 13 to 14 months, so we’re trimming it down,” he said. “I think we’ll get closer to a year and be on a 12 month cycle. We’ll see how it goes after this trilogy is done.”

I like the sound of "trilogy." But I think that, for episodic content to really work, it has to happen much more quickly. Isn't that the point of not doing a completely new game? I think that Valve has lost sight of the fact that what we're looking for is "more Half-Life 2," not "new technologies added to short Half-Life 2 episodes."

Labels: Video games

[ Posted at 10:44 AM | Permalink ]