The SiN Episodes Website has word that Emergence, the first installment in Ritual's episodic shooter sequel series, is now available via Steam:

Emergence, the first in a series of episodic games, casts players as HardCorps commander John Blade, stepping into the living world of Freeport City to defend humankind against Elexis Sinclaire, a beautiful and ruthless scientist out to remake humanity according to her own twisted vision. The law has failed to bring Elexis and her SiNTEK empire to justice, so you and your allies, the secretive hacker JC and fiery rookie Jessica Cannon, must bring down Sinclaire and her mutants before she can set her deadly plan in motion and forever alter the shape of humanity.

The Sin Episodes series is built on Source, the same engine Valve created for Half-Life® 2. Source offers state of the art graphics, physics simulation technology, an advanced character animation system and more. In the creation of Emergence, Ritual has taken the award-winning Source engine into new realms. As an example, the game adapts and tunes itself to each player's skill level and play style through the Personal Challenge System, which measures player's abilities, behavior, and reactions to the game world and then adjusts the gameplay and enemy prowess to match. Ruthless foes such as jetpack soldiers and mutants will thus evolve as you fight them, adapting to challenge the strengths of skilled players while seeking not to overwhelm inexperienced gamers. In addition, Emergence features advanced AI where enemies cooperate with each other, highly interactive environments that allow players to set traps, location-based damage, and fast-paced vehicle combat.

Providing a complete game with 4-6 hours of gameplay for players of all skill levels, Emergence's self-contained story fits into an overarching story arc populated with strong characters driven by believable motivations that will be further revealed in future episodes. Featuring the new Context Look System, thoughtful players can choose to dig into the deeper aspects of the story while players who want to enjoy the destruction can charge ahead with only the 'mission critical' story points, advanced through choreographed sequences.

"SiN Episodes: Emergence provides a high quality, immersive experience in a compact and affordable package that is accessible to players of all skill levels," said Steve Nix, Ritual CEO. "Emergence is a true step forward built on our ten years of growth and learning at Ritual, and the structure of SiN Episodes allows our team to continue to create gameplay innovation and evolve the storyline as the episodes continue."

SiN Episodes: Emergence for the PC is available now for $19.95, and carries an ESRB rating of "M" (Mature). For more information, please visit the game's official site at www.SinEpisodes.com.