The Steam Review

CVG reports:

SIN 2 STEAMS IN, POWERED BY SOURCE
Strong ties with Valve revealed as first official word on Ritual's sequel emerges

12:27 Ritual's SiN 2 is official. Not only that, but the sequel is boasting strong links with Valve Software. It's being built on a tweaked version of Valve's Source engine and according to word in PC Gamer magazine will be released in a number of episodes over Steam, each episode said to be six hours in length and being flogged at around $20 a pop.

SiN 2, Episode One, is expected this Winter, with subsequent episodes to be released over Steam every three to four months.

According to Ritual's CEO Steve Nix, the developer has "always wanted to get back to the SiN universe." And Nix told PC Gamer that: "We've been talking to Valve about Steam for about four years now".

Valve's Doug Lombardi recently stated that the Half-Life 2 developer was soon to announce "games created by other developers that will be made available via Steam". Enter SiN 2 as one such title then, and we're expecting news on more Steam involvement in this vein very shortly too.

No doubt one of the reasons behind developers' opting to distribute projects through Steam is the fact that it allows them to bypass constraints that may be placed on them by publishers. Ritual's Steve Nix has implied such is the case with SiN 2. "We talked to publishers about doing it, but we never felt able to make the product we wanted to make with the next SiN," he said of the sequel.

I'll write up something better once the dust has settled. Initial impression: evens it out with xStream having DNF.