The Dream is over for Half-Life

When we first saw the Dreamcast version of Half-Life in action at ECTS last year it was looking mighty impressive, but since then Sierra / Havas / Vivendi Universal Interactive Publishing has been strangely quiet about it. Rumours started to spread earlier this year that the title had been ditched, coming to a head at the end of May when several retailers and online stores started cancelling pre-orders for the game. With the arrival of Half-Life : Blue Shift, an over-priced stand-alone mission pack made up of the high poly models and handful of new levels which were supposed to be exclusive to the Dreamcast version, the writing seemed to be on the wall.

Now the official confirmation of what we had all suspected has come in a (very) short press release from Sierra saying that the publisher "regrets the cancellation of Half-Life for the Dreamcast due to changing market conditions". This seems likely to be a reference to Sega's recent decision to abandon the console hardware market and concentrate on game development in future, with stocks of the Dreamcast now almost exhausted in many countries. Sadly it's not the only Dreamcast game that may never see the light of day - reports suggest that Eidos has cancelled Dreamcast versions of Commandos 2 and Legacy of Kain, and several Sega titles which are due for release in Japan may not reach Europe or else end up being published by other companies. Bad news for Dreamcast fans all round then.