Half-Life 2: Episode 2 pushed back to Fall @ Gaming Target

Written by John Scalzo on February 07, 2007

News: Somewhere, out in the distance, you can hear Gabe Newell saying "when it's done."

EA and Valve have announced the release of Half-Life 2: Episode Two has been pushed back from sometime in the Summer to sometime in the Fall. Valve has also confirmed the game won't be known as Episode Two anymore, instead it will be known as "The Black Box" (which will include Episode Two, Portal and Team Fortress 2) and "The Orange Box" (which will include everything in the Black package and Half-Life 2 and HL2: Episode One).

The Black Box will be available on the PC and The Orange Box is coming to the PS3, Xbox 360 and PC.

For those who need a refresher course, here's what Valve has planned for HL2 Episode Two:

Half-Life 2: Episode Two - The second installment in Valve's episodic trilogy advances the award-winning story, leading the player to new locations outside of City 17.

Portal - A pioneering type of single player action game that rewrites the rules for how players approach and manipulate their environment - much like how Half-Life 2's Gravity Gun reinvented the way gamers interact with objects in the game.

Team Fortress 2 - An all-new version of the legendary title that spawned team based multiplayer action games. The game's daring new art style features the most advanced graphics of any Source-based game released to date.

"In less than 18 months, we've shipped 10 new products to retail outlets with EA Partners," said Gabe Newell, co-founder of Valve. "The Black Box and The Orange Box represent a new approach to publishing multiple products, on multiple platforms and we know through our experience that no organization in the industry is better equipped to successfully launch new product types on multiple platforms than EA Partners."

"Valve is one of the world's premiere independent developers and EA Partners is thrilled to help them bring the groundbreaking action games in The Orange Box and The Black Box to market as their publishing partner," said David DeMartini, vice president and general manager of EA Partners.

We'll have more on all things Half-Life soon.