Ritual Entertainment Launches SiN Episodes: Emergence In Europe

DALLAS, TX - May 26, 2006 - Step into Freeport City and join the battle for humanity's future Ritual Entertainment's SiN Episodes: Emergence for the PC, the first-ever episodic action game, is now available in retail stores throughout the European territories, excluding Germany, in addition to being downloadable online via the Steam distribution platform (www.steamgames.com).

SiN Episodes: Emergence breaks new ground as the first major episodic action gaming release. Episodic games are a new format for PC games that provide gamers with more intense and affordable game experiences at a quality level at or above traditionally priced products. Several leading developers and publishers are expected to follow suit with episodic releases throughout the year.

"With the release of SiN Episodes: Emergence Ritual is leading the industry's long overdue migration to producing episodic content," said Gabe Newell. "This has allowed them to achieve something every independent developer desires: The ability to produce a strong product on its own terms, own the property and realize the majority of the profits collected on the studio's work."

SiN Episodes: Emergence is the first episodic release in the SiN universe, which launched in 1998 with the debut PC game release. In addition to the original classic, the SiN franchise also includes Wages of SiN (1999, PC game) and SiN The Movie (VHS, DVD).

Emergence, the first in a series of episodic games, casts players as HardCorps commander John Blade, stepping into the living world of Freeport City to defend humankind against Elexis Sinclaire, a beautiful and ruthless scientist out to remake humanity according to her own twisted vision. The law has failed to bring Elexis and her SiNTEK empire to justice, so you and your allies, the secretive hacker JC and fiery rookie Jessica Cannon, must bring down Sinclaire and her mutants before she can set her deadly plan in motion and forever alter the shape of humanity.

The Sin Episodes series is built on Source, the same engine Valve created for Half-Life® 2. Source offers state of the art graphics, physics simulation technology, an advanced character animation system and more. In the creation of Emergence, Ritual has taken the award-winning Source engine into new realms. As an example, the game adapts and tunes itself to each player's skill level and play style through the Personal Challenge System, which measures player's abilities, behavior, and reactions to the game world and then adjusts the gameplay and enemy prowess to match. Ruthless foes such as jetpack soldiers and mutants will thus evolve as you fight them, adapting to challenge the strengths of skilled players while seeking not to overwhelm inexperienced gamers. In addition, Emergence features advanced AI where enemies cooperate with each other, highly interactive environments that allow players to set traps, location-based damage, and fast-paced vehicle combat.

Providing a complete game with 4-6 hours of gameplay for players of all skill levels, Emergence's self-contained story fits into an overarching story arc populated with strong characters driven by believable motivations that will be further revealed in future episodes. Featuring the new Context Look System, thoughtful players can choose to dig into the deeper aspects of the story while players who want to enjoy the destruction can charge ahead with only the 'mission critical' story points, advanced through choreographed sequences.

"SiN Episodes: Emergence provides a high quality, immersive experience in a compact and affordable package that is accessible to players of all skill levels," said Steve Nix, Ritual CEO. "Emergence is a true step forward built on our ten years of growth and learning at Ritual, and the structure of SiN Episodes allows our team to continue to create gameplay innovation and evolve the storyline as the episodes continue."

For more information, please visit the game's official site at www.SinEpisodes.com.

Contact:
Dana Whitney
One PR Studio
Tel: 510.893.3271
E-mail: dana@oneprstudio.com

About Ritual
Ritual Entertainment, a Dallas, Texas-based game development studio, has been a consistent leader in the evolution of content and technology for some of today's most successful console and PC games. Established in August 1996, Ritual is known for its ability to develop both internal and external properties with award-winning results. More on Ritual Entertainment can be found at www.ritual.com.

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® 2006 Ritual Entertainment and Sin Episodes are trademarks or registered trademarks of Ritual Entertainment Inc. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners.