Gamesradar.com has a preview of SiN: Episodes, offering an online reprint of the recent PC Gamer UK article on the game.

SinEpisodes.net has a SiN: Episodes Q&A, asking the team at Ritual about their episodic shooter. Questions are about the graphics, use of physics, demo plans, playing as other characters besides Blade, the price point, retail plans, multiplayer plans and more. There's also a Magnum weapon render here.

Ritualistic has a SiN: Episodes Q&A, asking the guys at Ritual about their episodic shooter. Questions are about the Steam only release, the price, the story, interactivity, environments we'll visit, weapons, community feedback and several other topics.

Over at Ritual fansite Ritualistic you can find a SiN Episodes FAQ, giving us an overview of what has been revealed about Ritual's episodic shooter so far.

Here are some early SiN Episodes screenshots, showing the first chapter Emergence which will be released later this year. If you missed the announcement about the return of John R. Blade check out this story. Thanks sinepisodes.de.

GameCloud has a SiN Episodes Q&A posted this morning, asking the tribe at Ritual about their episodic Source Engine project. Questions are about returning characters, the storyline, the change in design when planning for episodes, using Steam, the PC game market and a few other things.

Gamecloud - A while back there were some images from a demo for SiN 2 that was created by Ritual. What happened to that project?
Steve - We have been planning on how we were going to launch the next SiN product for several years. Back in 2003, we developed a short prototype that we spoke with publishers about developing into a traditional length, retail product. We had enough publisher interest to get the project signed, but we just were not comfortable with what we were being asked to give up in IP ownership and on sequel rights. SiN is extremely important to Ritual and we were willing to wait for the right time and the right deal to get the next game out there.

Valve sends along this press release, officially announcing the development of SiN Episodes at Ritual Entertainment. Powered by the Source Engine, SiN Episodes will be released as multiple chapters over Steam. The first installment will be called Emergence.

SiN Episodes expands on the role of Colonel John R. Blade, a battle worn hero in charge of HardCorps, an elite strike force with a long history of conflict with SinTEK, a powerful multibillion dollar empire headed up by Elexis Sinclaire, a beautiful, brilliant, and ruthless scientist who is out to remake humanity according to her own twisted vision. Joining Blade on his mission are JC, a HardCorps hacker with a secret to keep, and Jessica Cannon, a fiery rookie who can find her way into any secure facility. SiN Episodes: Emergence features never before seen weapons, characters and environments along with a host of interactive options, paying homage to its predecessors, SiN and its expansion pack, Wages of SiN, which set a new bar for interactivity

A preview of the game with screenshots can be found in PC Gamer UK.

EuroGamer has a SiN: Episodes preview of sorts, offering some more info they found in the PC Gamer UK preview of the game. There's talk about the new Jessica Cannon character, game interactivity, Source Engine tweaks and more. Meanwhile the Next Generation website has an interview with Ritual CEO Steve Nix about using Steam to distribute the game. Nix mentions a retail version might follow the release of SiN: Episodes on Steam.

But perhaps the most interesting implication of Ritual's decision to go for broke on the Episodic Gaming front is that fans themselves will be able to influence the progression of forthcoming episodes. Apparently players will occasionally be forced into making choices, and depending on how the community reacts as a whole, certain things will change in the next. For example, if you choose to save a key character their appearance may well be different in the next episode than if you had chosen to leave them to fend for themselves. With Ritual able to track exactly what players choose to do, the way is clear for the community to have a direct influence on how the eventual plot plays out - with the potential for players to replay sections to influence the direction.

The new PC Gamer is being delivered to subscribers in the UK, and in it there's an article on about the rumored SiN sequel that Ritual is working on. The surprise here is that the game is not a retail product, instead Ritual is working together with Valve to release the game in episodic form through Steam. It is also no surprise then that the new SiN is powered by a modified version of the Source engine. Ritual expects to release a new SiN episode every 3 to 4 months, offering about six hours of gameplay at a cost of around $20 per episode. For more info check out PC Gamer, the new US issue (subscribers will be getting it this week) will have a preview of the game as well. Thanks EuroGamer.

In a rare interview with PC Gamer, Ritual CEO Steve Nix said: "We've been talking to Valve about Steam for about four years now, and we've always wanted to get back to the SiN universe.
"We talked to publishers about doing it, but we never felt able to make the product we wanted to make with the next SiN." That is, until the relative freedom offered by Steam came along; something several developers must be seriously looking into at this point.

Well if you're into whole "find the secret URL" thing, LegionPharma has a new press release for you along with a job opening. The last puzzle revealed this URL which offers some (presumably) SiN sequel music when you type in "Genome" while the keyword "Demosthenes" offers a piece of concept art.

HomeLAN Fed has a Q&A about SiN and SiN 2 this morning, asking Ritual's badman and Levelord about the first game's cult following, the unfortunate lack of success, plans for more Sin anime, as of course the SiN 2 publisher demo.

Ritual Entertainment fansite Ritualistic has posted two Sin 2 model images, showing what Blade and Elexis look like in the Sin 2 demo which was shown to publishers but was never picked up.

Forgot to mention this earlier, but Ritual's Tom Mustaine recently paid a visit to the comments system and posted this about SiN 2 and how we're unlikely to see it any time soon.

We were working Sin2, but there was no publisher interest in today's game market. Even have a really slick demo in a next generation technology (beyond Quake3.)

Maybe it can happen in a few years when the next round of "resurrect old game franchises" mentality resurfaces.

Until that day....

There's also a second post clarifying that this would've been a full sequel, not a remake of the first.

Public release 2 of the SiN 2 UT conversion has been released, as a 40mb download. It's not exactly clear what's been changed. Thanks Blues News.

Ritual's Levelord made a pretty lengthy .plan update today to followup on the announcement of the Ritual split yesterday, where he jokingly mentioned in one of his .plan updates that people could get some spare desks and computers for cheap from Ritual. They aren't actually offering anything. He also explains why Ritual split and why it's a good thing. However, he also mentions that there is a possibility that Ritual will start development on SiN 2, possibly this year already.

One last thing, ...SiN II. We have nothing but absolute desire to make SiN II. No one wants this more than we do! My guess is that it will happen, perhaps even this year. We are starting a very cool game right now, so it's hard to say. SiN is a Ritual property and unless someone wants to pay A LOT of money, it will always be a Ritual property ;) PLEASE STOP ASKING ME ABOUT SiN II for at least a little while!

Not too long ago, there was a petition where fans of the original SiN asked Ritual to make a sequel. The petition got some 3600 signatures, enough to make Ritual consider it it appears.