HL2: Aftermath release date

By Tom Bramwell Published 10 January, 2006

And pricing, platinum pack news.

Valve has confirmed that it aims to release Half-Life 2: Aftermath on April 24th, along with a Platinum edition of Half-Life 2.

Aftermath, announced last year, is the first single-player expansion for Half-Life 2 to expand on the events of the game, and had previously been down for a November 2005 "launch window".

Speaking to various organisations yesterday, however, Valve's Doug Lombardi said, "We're currently targeting April 24th for the release of both Aftermath and Platinum."

Aftermath will be made available via Steam, Valve's digital distribution service, for $19.99, with a boxed version also available through publishing partner EA. European gamers should probably anticipate a Friday, April 28th launch for the boxed game in line with European publishing practices.

The Platinum pack will include Half-Life 2, HL2 Deathmatch, Counter-Strike: Source, Day of Defeat: Source and Aftermath.

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.

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

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Comments (15) Latest comment 6 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Aurifex. #1 6 years ago

    Hope the system specs are the same as HL2

  • Hicksy #2 6 years ago

    Excellent news! \o/

    Have been waiting for a platinum pack release too since upgrading and not putting steam on the new pc yet!

    /dances

  • Kiigan #3 6 years ago

    yum!

  • JonFE #4 6 years ago

    Hicksy, I highly doubt that the platinum pack would make installing Steam obsolete...

  • Hicksy #5 6 years ago

    I know m8 :)

    Just wanted a "hard copy" of the game!

  • JonFE #6 6 years ago

    I guess that settles it then :)

  • Ignatius_Cheese #7 6 years ago

    You'll never be able to escape Steam... It'll creep up on you and demand downloading a HUGE patch in order to play Aftermath. Watch this space... :o/

  • JonFE #8 6 years ago

    The thing I don't like about Steam is that, every time it updates either itself or the installed games, you cannot play unless 100% ready and you have no real indication of the total required download other than that lousy percentage reading, where 1% probably measures up to more than 100 MB...

    I authenticated my copy over a 56k dial-up last Christmas and have updated only once since (this Christmas) because of that...

    Other than that I feel it is forward thinking which many developers will adopt...
    Edited by 1 at 10/01/06 @ 12:04

  • bad #9 6 years ago

    I'm fairly certain by right-clicking on a game in Steam and bringing up the properties it'll tell you how much space it requires. It's not too difficult to then work out what each percent equals in terms of disk space.

  • Artemus #10 6 years ago

    I don't know why Valve bothers giving release dates any more. It'll just slip as usual.

  • Talha #11 6 years ago

    Yeah I know there will be posters who will say:

    HL2 sucks
    The story was rubbish
    The AI was pathetic (er, OK it was)
    The environmetns were not as technically good as Doom
    The game is overrated

    Fine, I saved you lot a whole lot of trouble. Can't wait for this - the very thought of going back into that world sends shivers down my spine. Of course, provided it gets reeased within this century.

    And yes, I too hope the system specs are the same - but they willl be right? I mean, expansion packs never exceed the reqs for their 'mother' games

  • Artemus #12 6 years ago

    I too hope the system specs are the same - but they willl be right? I mean, expansion packs never exceed the reqs for their 'mother' games

    The expansion will use HDR. If you've played Lost Coast you see the system specs take quite a hike. But I'd imagine you'll be able to turn those effects off.

  • asphaltcowboy #13 6 years ago

    So there's no planned boxed release?

  • Boundy #14 6 years ago

    There is a boxede version, read the last paragraph.

  • asphaltcowboy #15 6 years ago

    Yeah, I meant just for Aftermath - I already have HL2, DM and CSS