Computer & Video Games also has a Counter-Strike: Condition Zero Q&A. Ritual's Rob Atkins is asked for an overview of the game, what they are currently working on, what's taking up the most time, major changes, and the upcoming upgrade.

So Ritual & Valve are showing off Counter-Strike: Condition Zero at the CPL Winter event in Dallas. But what about all of you who aren't attending? Don't you get to see the game? Oh yes you do. Because FileShack is now hosting a new video showing about a minute of ingame footage. That's not all, we also have two new screenshots to go along with these shots that were previously released. Expect to see Counter-Strike: Condition Zero in Spring 2003.

You can also check out this new preview on GameSpot.

HomeLAN Fed has posted a Q&A with Valve's Erik Johnson, who answers a few more questions about the upcoming Counter-Strike: Condition Zero which is now in development at Ritual Entertainment. JCal asks about this switch of developers, and Counter-Strike in general.

There's a new Counter-Strike: Condition Zero preview on GameSpy, offering some impressions of the current build of the game now in development at Ritual Entertainment. The article confirms that Ritual has started from scratch and the article also has some quotes by people from Valve and Gearbox, though not from anyone at Ritual. Thanks HomeLAN Fed.

The CPL today announced their workshop schedule for the upcoming CPL Winter event, which shows some interesting information about Condition Zero. This single-player Counter-Strike will be shown at a workshop, but who is hosting this workshop? Ritual Entertainment, and not Gearbox Software. Through various sources we learned that Ritual (also working on Elite Force 2) took over development of the game back in August. It's not known if they started from scratch or are working with the content build by Gearbox. Randy Pitchford & Co will still be at the CPL, showing the PC port of Halo. Ritual is actually the third company to work on Condition Zero, as Rogue Entertainment briefly worked on it as well before Gearbox took over.

Update: Valve sends along confirmation that Ritual Entertainment is indeed the new developer for Condition Zero.

Counter-Strike: Condition Zero Development Moves to Ritual
The primary development of Counter-Strike: Condition Zero (CS:CZ) has moved to Ritual Entertainment. Counter-Strike: Condition Zero introduces single player gaming to the world's #1 online action game. Representatives from Ritual and Valve will be presenting the latest on CS:CZ during a seminar at the The CPL's upcoming Counter-Strike Championships in Dallas, Texas.

In addition to the quote from Valve Software, we have gotten this from Gearbox's Randy Pitchford:

Gearbox Software suspended development of Counter-Strike: Condition Zero in July of 2002. Counter-Strike: Condition Zero introduces single player gaming to the world's #1 online action game. Valve Software has overseen development since July. Gearbox is aware of and endorses Ritual Entertainment's involvement. After developing several Half-Life games, Counter-Strike: Condition Zero, Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3 and James Bond 007: Nightfire, Gearbox Software is refocusing its efforts on future technology and more interesting and innovative game play. Gearbox Software will be discussing Halo: Combat Evolved for the PC and our vision for the future of interactive entertainment at The CPL's December 2002 event in Dallas, Texas.

So, everyone remember Condition Zero? A while back Gearbox Software was working on the game and it looked like it was only a couple months away from completion. We were even invited up to Gearbox to do a a little preview of it as we do with some games nearing completion in the Dallas area. Well, we've heard a total of nothing about CZ since. All we've got is back in July the Sierra release schedule was updated to list CZ as a fall release, and a trailer that was released the day Fileshack launched over 3 months ago. Well then, we're smack in the middle of Fall now and there has been nothing announced or a peep of PR, except for a couple of the CZ weapons finding their way into the upcoming Counter-Strike 1.6 release date. However, it appears that retailers are being told to push back their estimated release dates yet again. Generally speaking, you can almost never trust an online retailer who lists a game as coming out earlier than expected, as they get their dates from optimistic (delusional) publishers. However when you start to see dates pushed back nearly half a year, something is up.

- GameStop : 6 / 2 / 2003
- EBGames: 5 /1 / 2003
- Amazon: 2 / 1 / 2003
- CompUSA: 2 / 15 / 2003

Thanks to CSNation for first noticing this. I've fired off an email to the Valve folks asking whats up of course.

Valve Software has just sent along the official trailer for Counter-Strike: Condition Zero showing off 90 seconds of gameplay footage in 640x450 MPEG4. Just because we're feeling saucy you can download it over at FileShack.com. If your ISP for some reason hasnt gotten the updated DNS entry, here's the IP address link. Feel free to leave comments on FileShack here. Hopefully you wont make us cry? If you dont have a MPEG4 player, you can grab Quicktime6 here

Gearbox president Randy Pitchford updated his .plan file, mentioning that the Gearbox Software website has a new design. Official forums among a few other things have been added.

Randy Pitchford of Gearbox has been interviewed on Action Vault, where they ask him about the upcoming Counter-Strike: Condition Zero. They ask him about the goals of the project, the gameworld they've created, new weapons, types of enemies and NPCs, multiplayer options, scripted events, and a few other things.

Bum deal for Counter-Strike players. Remember Condition Zero? Yeah Gearbox is working on that single player game in the Counter-Strike universe. Well here's the quick blurb:

Counter-Strike: Condition Zero was originally slated for spring, then pushed back to summer, and now, via an updated release schedule, Sierra has revealed in that it won't be with us until the autumn. Bah. Reason for the delay is unknown, and when contacted earlier today a spokesperson for Sierra UK would give no comment.

We've heard a few things through the grapevine about this, I've fired off an email to Gearbox so perhaps we'll get an official statement. Or I'll drive to Randy's house and pee on his rug. update: Here's that Counter-Strike: Condition Zero follow-up from Gearbox. Apparently they have been saying the release date got pushed back to fall ever since E3. We just uh.. didnt notice.

"I'm surprised that this is news.  Since E3, we've been saying that it's looking like Fall and that's still the target.  The game will ship when Valve and Gearbox think it's great.  We'll announce an accurate ship date when we're closer."

As for what specifically pushed back the date, guess we wont find that out. Looking at our previous Condition Zero posts I dont see any reference to the date. Guess we suck.

Randy Pitchford from over at Gearbox updated his .plan file, mentioning that the company is looking to hire people. Specifically they are looking for an animator and a level designer. You'll get a chance to work on Counter-Strike: Condition Zero or James Bond 007: Nightfire. For more info go here.

The Adrenaline Vault has a brief update on Counter-Strike: Condition Zero, the new retail Counter-Strike game in development at Gearbox. According to the AVault, Condition Zero now has an all-new single player mode which will be announced at E3 (May 22 - 24). Also, each level will now have 12 objectives, up from the previous 10. The game is due out later this summer.

Randy Pitchford from Gearbox was once again ready to do an interview about Condition Zero, the Counter-Strike game his company is working on. They ask him about the weapons (new ones, changes to the old ones), team command options, if they ever wished they had a better engine to work with and a few other things. Saw that on Blues News.

Gameplex is the latest site to ask Randy Pitchford of Gearbox a few questions about the upcoming Counter-Strike Condition Zero. This singleplayer product will be released in the second quarter of 2002.

CS-Nation has posted a 45mb movie with footage from Condition Zero. There is actually an inteview with Randy Pitchford of Gearbox as well, but since the movie is from a German magazine, it is dubbed in German.

There is a new Counter-Strike: Condition Zero preview on Computer & Video Games, taking another look at the upcoming single player CS game in development at Gearbox Software. Several quotes from Randy Pitchford accompany the preview.

Tiscali Games is the latest site chatting with Randy Pitchford about Condition Zero, the upcoming objective based single player Counter-Strike game. They ask him about the game length, bot AI, new movement for the player or weapons, multiplayer plans, plans for a demo and more.

Several new Counter-Strike Condition Zero screenshots can be seen at Lone Gamers. The game will be released later this year.

It took them a few days but PC.IGN now has a new preview of Counter-Strike: Condition Zero, which was being shown at GDC. The article talks about the upgraded visuals, how the single player campaign works, bot AI and how bots are used, and the new weapons.

There's a Counter-Strike: Condition Zero interview on LoneGamers, which has Randy Pitchford from Gearbox answering some more questions about this upcoming Gearbox game. Questions and answers are about the special features in the game, if CZ will take over CS's online presence, if Randy thinks the game compete with Quake 3 engine games, the fairly open structure of the game and other topics.