Half-Life 2: Aftermath Delayed

exdeath writes "Halflife2.net announced that Valve's follow-up to last years acclaimed shooter Half-Life 2 will not be releasing in November 2005 as originally planned. From the post: 'Just wanted to give you a quick update on Aftermath, specifically its ETA. We're working very hard to finish this new episode for HL2, however, its going to take us a bit more time to get it into top shape. As such, the target release for this one is now Feb/March of next year.'" Confirmed by Valve. Ensaddening.

Comments

Amazing. Game developer's that still give dates

[popo]

How is it possible that we *haven't* learned this by now?

Companies that give release dates and stick to them, usually release buggy sub-par games.

Companies that have a steadfast policy of *not* publishing release dates (ie: Blizzard) and adopt a "we'll release it when its done" policy -- usually release great software.

The new middle ground of course, are companies like Bethesda and Valve who bravely make public statements and regularly push back titles.

(It should be noted that Bethsoft caved to MSFT on an Xbox Morrowind release date and the results were disastrous. It wasn't until the re-release a year later that players saw all those horrendous bugs fixed)

While pushing back a release date is the obviously responsible thing to do, it also pisses lots of people off. One wonders "why even offer release dates at all"?

IMHO Blizzard has got it right. "Its done when its done".