Half-Life 2 expansion Aftermath will be getting a retail release after all, Valve's Doug Lombardi has confirmed, and the developer aims to release the game in September.

Speaking to Eurogamer at E3, Lombardi said: "Aftermath will be coming out at retail, but we're finalising our publishing partner." Valve recently parted ways with Half-Life 2 publisher Vivendi-Universal Games, who will cease distribution of the company's products at the end of August.

Asked when the developer's new publishing partner was likely to be revealed, Lombardi said it would be "soon, in the summer". He also added that the current release date estimate for Aftermath is "September".

Those with long memories will recall Valve signed up with Activision back in Spring 2003 for future content, but so far the only release has been Day Of Defeat. It is not known whether the US publisher will be adding to its expanding roster of FPS developers, with id and Infinity Ward among others already signed up. We shouldn't have long to wait to find out.

Half-Life 2: Aftermath puts players back in the role of Gordon Freeman, with an expanded role for sidekick Alyx, and deals with events immediately following the conclusion of Half-Life 2.

Updates to Steam, Counter-Strike: Source, and the Source Engine have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The specific changes include:

Counter-Strike: Source

• Fixed hang bug when shooting grates


• Re-released changes from Thursday's update

Source Engine

• Fixed an intermittent crash ("failed to open models\\gman_high.vvd") in Half-Life 2

Steam

• Added an indicator in settings UI displaying current authentication status for multiplayer games


• Fixed a game crash which occurred when trying to write to special filenames reserved by Windows

Half-Life 2 Xbox was on display last week at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles, California. The editors at www.1up.com released their best of show awards and bestowed "Best Xbox Game" honors to Half-Life 2. Click here for the full story.

Its been quite some time since our last update, but that does not mean we are not working. Tonights update includes two renders of the final player models and an ingame (WIP) shot of the M1 Garand.

Remember the ingame screenshot is strictly a WIP and does not represent the final product.

D.E.A.D will be releasing a media update every month from here on out

We are looking to fill a few open spots on the team, which include:

2 Mappers
2 Player Modelers
2 Weapon modelers
2 Skinners (weapon, world prop and player)
1 webdesigner
1 coder (must know C++)

Anyone that is interested in filling one of these spots can contact us on IRC #d.e.a.d (Gamesurge) or email: team@deadmod.com or on our forums.

We may not have been posting much as of late, but we are working here in the world of Violent Memories.

First we have a new concept by woofyc:



Next are a few screenshots by woofyc:



It may not be much, but it is progress on our part.

We decided to take the part of our mod profile that said we aren't changing much and chew it, spit it out, and ignore it. We will likely be including new guns and the likes, so be on the lookout.

Our team is working with the first map and models which are going to be in use for the first alpha. In order to fulfil our inentions we are in need of coders skinners and organic modelers. If you are interested in any of these areas please contact us.

We hope to release some new pictures within the next coming weeks, to display the progress we are making and the quality of our work. A little taste of our mod can you see here: ( In the screenshotbox below.
Thats all for now. We hope we´ve given you a good impression of our Mod. So stay Tuned.

We've updated the final beta 2 changelog, which can be seen here. Aside from the big features like the new map and weapons, the most exciting change is our scoring system. Once a team wins, the map resets and players keep their experience. This continues until the map time limit is reached. We're also awarding "caps" when your team successfully captures an objective and you end the round in that objective.

We've fixed the infamous "memory crash" so the game will be much more stable. Several weapon textures have also been touched up. Oh, and ModStats is going to absolutely rock.

As you can see if you follow this amazing mod that we have a new weapon. We may do one more weapon we will ponder that!

Simps is making the new player models look real good.
Perin is busting it in Brawl gear on his map
Ready is secretly working on his map
Lep is secretly working his map

We still lack the coder I soon hope to find one that knows what he is doing and wants the challenge our mod will bring him/her!

Are you a frequent visitor of the ESF forums? Do you want access to the ultimate headquarters of ESF information and want to see exclusive ESF news and media in advance? We host several forum competitions which are used to give out free access to a hidden forum section called the 'Force Pit' to the respective winners.

Are you good with flash? If so, the third competition of the series has been launched today. Check it out here:

Forum Competition III