Half-Life 2 SDK due soon

Although Valve has gone to ground somewhat in the aftermath of the recent Half-Life 2 source code leak, offering little in the way of comment or news on the progress of massively anticipated and delayed first-person shooter, we did learn this week that the developer plans to release game's Software Development Kit (SDK) in the near future.

In reply to an email which made it onto the HalfLife2.net forums, Valve engineer Rick Ellis revealed that the SDK "will be released soon", which was quickly confirmed by Valve's head PR Doug Lombardi, who told GameSpot "We will be releasing v.1 of [the SDK] in the coming weeks."

However Ellis' email also mentioned a "legal hang-up that has now been resolved" was the cause of the SDK's extensive hold-up, prompting further speculation that physics gurus Havok may have sued Valve over the infamous source code leak - which included Havok physics code. However Lombardi was quick to deny this, telling GameSpot "The legal hang-up... was simply in reference to us finalising some paperwork involved with the distribution of the code in the SDK." Others are less convinced, but of the phantom lawsuit Lombardi said "to the best of our knowledge it is nothing more than a rumour."

Nobody even bothered to ask him when the game is due out. At this stage, your guess is as good as ours on that one...