SiN Episode 1 dated

By Tom Bramwell Published 6 April, 2006

Priced, available to pre-load.

Ritual's much-anticipated first-person shooter SiN Episode 1: Emergence will be released via Steam on May 9th, gatekeeper Valve's announced, with pre-loading already available so you can get your teeth stuck into it as soon as it's live.

At the same time, EA's announced that it will be handling the retail version of the game, which is set to go on sale in Europe on May 12th. The price quoted for the US boxed version is $19.95, and those who buy it over Steam will apparently save 10 per cent on the price.

Emergence, which uses Valve's Half-Life 2 "Source" engine, once again follows the adventures of John Blade, as he tries to sort out the evil Elexis once and several episodes later presumably for all.

Expect news on more episodes soon, and in the meantime you can see how the game looks on Eurogamer TV.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000. Follow him on Twitter.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (30) Latest comment 6 years ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Darkedge #1 6 years ago

    hmm may have to get this... originally hated the idea of steam but now it's looking much better

  • Tiiti #2 6 years ago

    AI still looks as crap as it was in HL2 and I still don't like the look of the engine :(
    I'll still get it though :)

  • smelly #3 6 years ago

    I *loved* the idea of steam. But then i tried using it in practice.

    Bought game (darwinia), tried to download it, "server full, try again in an hour", hour later,"server full, try again in an hour", hour later, "server full, try again in an hour".

    1 week later, "server full, try again in an hour".

    After 2 weeks, i gave up and downloaded a dodgy copy instead. But at least i had a clear conscience having paid for it..

    Steam = nice idea = shit in practice.

  • neilka #4 6 years ago

    Note that in the UK you get the 10% preorder discount taken off and then 17.5% VAT added back on...

    You do get SIN 1 thrown in which you can play straight away.

  • Darkedge #5 6 years ago

    I had no problems when I bought Darwinina but they do need to ensure they have LOADS of servers avaliable.
    Can you purchase it online now then??

  • smoison #6 6 years ago

    Any news on when Eurogamer will have a review up?

    Or will Ritual get you a copy -on- release day, so as to ensure the review wont be here too soon to spoil the launch?

  • Talha #7 6 years ago

    Funny guys, Valve. Having perfected the art of online distribution on their own games, they are now out distributing other games!

  • EatLessMoveMore #8 6 years ago

    Funny guys, Valve. Having perfected the art of online distribution on their own games, they are now out distributing other games!

    What's funny abou that? assuming they take a small slice of the revenue, makes sound business sense to me.
    Edited by EatLessMoveMore at 06/04/06 @ 12:00

  • smelly #9 6 years ago

    Makes perfect business sense to me

  • Machiavel #10 6 years ago

    "SIN Episode 1 dated"

    Hmm, sounds like a early spoiler for the review!

  • Talha #11 6 years ago

    Come on people, I meant that in the context of the troubles innocent gamers suffered and are still suffering due to Steam, one would think they would iron that out first - nothing to do with 'business sense' etc.

  • smelly #12 6 years ago

    Hey, i said it made business sense. I *didnt* say it was good for consumers.

    Until they can gaurantee that i can download it BEFORE i part with my money, they can get to feck.

  • CargoCult #13 6 years ago

    I've bought quite a lot of stuff on Steam, and haven't had any problems with it. Are you sure it's not your pr0n-spyware-infested PCs or over-zealous, paranoid-o-matic firewalls causing problems?

    I installed Steam on my Mac last night, logged in and was presented with a full list of all my games. I restored HL2 from backup files from my PC (it would be a fair sized download, after all) and set it to work downloading the original Half-Life and the Source SDK.

    Worked fine.

  • Triggerhappytel #14 6 years ago

    Is this SiN, as in the PC FPS that was released about 7 years ago?!

    Or does it stand for something else?

  • Scientist #15 6 years ago

    "The price quoted for the US boxed version is $19.95, and those who buy it over Steam will apparently save 10 per cent on the price."

    If you take into account cost of goods and retailer mark-up the boxed copy seems like a better deal. I think this shows that digital distribution won't reduce the cost to the consumer by much while the publishers will get an even heftier profit margin.

  • Talha #16 6 years ago

    @CargoCult : The fact that YOU didn't have a problem doesn't mean that the others are making things up. Also, problems with Steam don't happen all the time, just when there is some new hot stuff on it.

    However, I do admit that I have a general bias against this whole online delivery racket. I mean, games like Lemonade Tycoon are fine, but full fledged titles? I guess I am a boxed-copy fanboy!

  • jellyhead #17 6 years ago

    Valve are also looking into releasing movies via steam as well as other peoples games.
    What i'm a bit concerned about are the other digital distribution applets you'll be getting from EA, xstream etc I don't think they'll all sit and play nicely together on the smae machine but we'll see.

  • statix101 #18 6 years ago

    "Is this SiN, as in the PC FPS that was released about 7 years ago?!

    Or does it stand for something else? "

    Yep, the very same one, funny thing is, the original got lost amongst the hype that was Half life 1, how ironic that the sequel is pimping off the back off Valve's Steam service........

  • Darkedge #19 6 years ago

    it costs $21.09 to pre-order now in the U.K.
    The original game is included but it wasn't just because of Halflife that it wasn't a success - the 400 MB patch AT LAUNCH that was needed to complete the game as it was so bugged... It was apparently a good game when fixed though, if a bit cheesy.
    They still made a Anime movie of it too.

    Unfortunately SIN 1 may be included with eps 1, but they haven't done anything to update it or even properly checked that it works right - the shooting range is borked for example. Annoying and slack.

  • Bitkari #20 6 years ago

    hmm.. $20 for one episode. i must admit that i thought it would be a bit less than that!

    aren't there going to be about 8 episodes of this? i'm not sure that i'm willing to fork out $160 for the lot...

    get it down to about $10/£6 an episode, and that might work a bit better...

  • p_p #21 6 years ago

    $20 isn't too bad unless it's something like three hours long.
    Edited by p_p at 06/04/06 @ 15:48

  • neilka #22 6 years ago

    If you go to www.sinepisodes.com the main graphic shows spaces for up to 9 episodes. At £12 a pop that's £108 for the full series!

  • neilka #23 6 years ago

    I've already preordered and preloaded - I was just saying, like. It could be an expensive journey if you stick with it to the end.

  • Errol #24 6 years ago

    The video on EG TV looks good. I might get this one.

  • [TR] #25 6 years ago

    I'll pay for this if they make a demo available and I enjoy it.
    I don't like the idea of paying and pre-loading just to find I don't like the game.
    And I still think these games are overpriced for online distribution, especially being episodic.
    Edited by [TR] at 06/04/06 @ 20:51

  • Nikanoru #26 6 years ago

    Episodes are still retarded. Oh, the people who thought of it aren't, it's good for them. It's just that they're for retarded people.

    Vermin is just one of those forum infiltrators.

  • smoison #27 6 years ago

    Nice try with the HTML code there Nikanoru, but really for those who liked the first SiN (there are some) and have 20 bucks to spare, its pretty sweet.

    And if it sucks, then your screwed if you didn't get the CD, to sell it :D



    P.S SiN had good headshot and a realistic health system, lets hope they didn't screw that up. (HL2 DID)
    Edited by smoison at 06/04/06 @ 22:31

  • Nikanoru #28 6 years ago

    Ooooh he accidentally mixed up html and phpBB tags, and then, like, somebody called him on it, ooooh burn.

    Vermin, not sure what part of my post was unclear to you, but I was talking about those people who get paid to act like any forumgoer, only try to sell products in an unsuspicious way. And how anybody who's defending episodic content looks like one of those people, because episodic content is a great way for publishers to make more money off the same thing while trying to make people believe the oposite. See: your and smoison's comments about how it's "actually cheaper!", come on. Pure marketing talk.

  • [TR] #29 6 years ago

    @vermin: That's exactly why I think these episodes (Sin and HL2) are overpriced. I don't want to pay $20 "to see if I like it". Depite being less representative of the whole game, I rather try a game out in a free, 30min-ish demo.
    Plus, they could have the option of buying episode packs. Get 3 for the price of 2 and such.
    And what's that about the original sin getting a source revamp? Missed that one.

  • Freek #30 6 years ago

    Ever heard of reviews? It's not standard practice for games to come out with demos, some do, some don't. You want to know what a game is like? Read a review from a srouce you trust and read some feedback on forums from gamers to get a good overall view.

    I'm sure they will do special offers to buy more then one, but that'll only happen later on when there are actaul more of them in existance, to atract new customers.