While fans may have to wait until summer 2007 to get their hands on Valve's next chapter in the Half-Life game saga, the release of Half-Life 2: Episode 2 is still considered one of the big game releases of next year since it will also include the long awaited Team Fortress 2 and their puzzle shooter Portal. FiringSquad got a chance to chat with Valve's director of marketing Doug Lombardi to find out more about Episode 2.

FiringSquad: First, was Valve pleased with the reactions and sales of Half-Life 2: Episode 1?

Doug Lombardi: Yes. Episode One debuted at number 1 on retail charts around the world and held that position on the best seller lists throughout the summer.

Editor's Note: Lombardi did not comment on a question we asked concerning the amount of copies of Episode 1 sold via Steam versus their retail store sales.

FiringSquad: While Episode 1 seemed like more of the same Half-Life 2 gameplay, it looks like Valve is changing things up for Episode 2. Is that intentional?

Doug Lombardi: Episode One served as the bridge between Half-Life 2 and this trilogy of new episodes. Picking up exactly where HL2 left off, we needed to spend a bit more time in City 17 to resolve a few things, while extending the AI and other technologies to enable the single player coop experience between you and Alyx. In Episode Two, the Gordon has left City 17 and will spend the rest of this trilogy exploring new locations and interacting with new characters and items.

FiringSquad: Can you give us any hints on how the storyline evolves in Episode 2?

Doug Lombardi: In Episode Two, the player races across the areas north of City 17 in an effort to transport the information packet stolen from the Citadel to an enclave of resistance scientists. The Combine are in disarray after the fall of the Citadel, but are regrouping and advancing on the resistance position.

FiringSquad: The newly revealed Team Fortress 2 is a lot different than the game that was first shown at E3 in 1999. What caused the change in art style to a cartoony 1960's spy look?

Doug Lombardi: Starting with the characters in TF2 we had a set of goals that we wanted to accomplish, ranging from making sure that you could identify a class and its abilities from just it silhouette, to allowing gamers to form an emotional attachment to the class they most liked to play. Once we felt like we had a set of characters that were meeting those goals, along with all of the goals in between, we started building a world for them to play in that was complimentary.

FiringSquad: Will there be classic maps from the original Team Fortress in Team Fortress 2?

Doug Lombardi: Yes. Dustbowl and 2Fort are among the favorites returning, and there will be a few additionals. While they will all be familiar, the art style has obviously changed to match the look of TF2 and some of the geometry has been enhanced/modified to enable new styles of play.

FiringSquad: Is Team Fortress 2 a Valve project or is the game being developed by a third party?

Doug Lombardi: Team Fortress 2, Portal and Episode Two are all being created internally at Valve.

FiringSquad: Portal comes from an outside developer that Valve brought in to develop the game. How did this relationship come about?

Doug Lombardi: The team members were students at Digipen located in Redmond, Washington, next to the Nintendo campus. As part of their senior year in the program, they created a game called Narbacular Drop, which was an early test of their ideas about portal-based gameplay. Every year Digipen puts on an expo for graduating seniors to show their senior projects to prospective employers. A couple of Valve people attended, and invited those students to come to the offices and show it to some folks here. Gabe saw it and basically hired all of them on the spot.

FiringSquad: The game is described as being in the Half-Life 2 universe. Can you give us any more info on what that means exactly?

Doug Lombardi: We will be revealing that connection in the new year.

FiringSquad: Portal seems to be a first person puzzle game rather than a shooter. Is that a fair assessment?

Doug Lombardi: It’s certainly not a traditional shooter.

FiringSquad: How hard was it to adapt the Source engine to work with the Portal gun and its effects?

Doug Lombardi: There was some work required to get the Source physics simulation technology working well with Portals. But one of our goals for Source was to create a modular set of technologies that would allow for games in all types of genres – new and old. Portal, TF2 and EpTwo are all very different looking and playing games, all built on that technology.

FiringSquad: Will there be SDKs released for Team Fortress 2 and Portal?

Doug Lombardi: Absolutely.

FiringSquad: Since you are adding these two games to Half-Life 2: Episode 2 can you tell us if the price of Episode 2 will remain $19.95?

Doug Lombardi: We’re targeting Summer 2007 for release of these games. On the PC, 360 and PS3, the will come in a package simply known as Half-Life 2 Orange Box. On the PC, there will be a pack that contains just Episode Two, Portal and Team Fortress 2 – this pack will be called Half-Life 2 Black Box. Final pricing has not yet been determined.

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