SIERRA ON-LINE ANNOUNCES HALF-LIFE®: BLUE SHIFT PC RELEASE
All-New Episode for "The Greatest Action Game of All Time" To Ship in June
BELLEVUE, WA (March 29, 2001) - Sierra On-Line and Gearbox Software
announce today Half-Life®: Blue Shift, the newest episode in the award-winning
Half-Life franchise, will ship to retail outlets around the world in June. Half-Life: Blue
Shift allows fans of the franchise to interact with new characters and explore
restricted areas of the Black Mesa Research Facility. The game's website featuring
a trailer for the game went live today at the following URL,
http://www.sierrastudios.com/games/hl-blueshift/.
Blue Shift is an all-new single player episode surrounding the Black Mesa security guard
introduced in Valve's classic action thriller, Half-Life. In development by Gearbox Software,
creators of the critically acclaimed Half-Life®: Opposing Force™, Blueshift also contains the
Half-Life HD Pack, which automatically upgrades the weapons and characters of all the games
in the Half-Life saga with new high definition content.
"Blue Shift was created for Half-Life fans everywhere and we're very pleased to be able
to bring it to the PC," said Randy Pitchford, Director of Gearbox Software. "In addition
to the entirely new Blue Shift episode, the package also includes support for online play
and the Half-Life HD Pack, which brings all Half-Life games to the next generation of
graphics technology."
Half-Life: Blue Shift allows fans of the franchise to explore areas of the Black Mesa Research
Facility where even Gordon Freeman never gained access. Half-Life: Blue Shift is a stand-alone
product that does not require Half-Life to play. And in North America, Blue Shift will be sold
with a full version of Half-Life: Opposing Force, winner of the Academy of Interactive Arts
and Sciences Action Game of the Year Award.
Half-Life combines great storytelling with intense action and advanced technology to
create an impressive, realistic world where players need to think smart to survive.
Created by Valve LLC, Half-Life has won more than 50 Game of the Year awards from
publications around the world, was named "Best PC Game Ever" by Imagine Media's
PC Gamer magazine (November 1999), and has sold over two million copies worldwide
on the PC.
Founded in January 1999, Gearbox Software is a team of veteran 3D game developers
collected in Dallas, Texas. Half-Life: Opposing Force was the company's first offering to
the gaming community and is the recipient of the prestigious 2000 Academy of Interactive
Arts & Sciences' PC Action Game of the Year. More information about Gearbox Software
can be found at www.gearboxsoftware.com.
Sierra On-Line, Inc. http://www.sierra.com, a subsidiary of Vivendi
Universal Publishing and part of the Vivendi Universal Games division, is
one of the original developers and largest worldwide publishers of
interactive entertainment and productivity software. Sierra is renowned for
releasing critically acclaimed and award winning titles that represent a
wide variety of computer entertainment on both next generation console and
PC platforms.
Vivendi Universal Games (VUG) is a division of Vivendi Universal Publishing, a world leader
in mass-market multimedia communications. A leading publisher of online, PC and
console-based interactive content, VUG's portfolio of entertainment software brands
includes Blizzard Entertainment®, Flipside.com™, Sierra™ and Universal Interactive
Studios. Games are one of parent company Vivendi Universal's key content areas,
along with movies, music and other publishing activities. Vivendi Universal aims to
be the world's preferred creator and provider of personalized information, entertainment
and services to consumers everywhere, and across all distribution platforms.
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