SIERRA ON-LINE ANNOUNCES HALF-LIFE(r): BLUE SHIFT PC RELEASE
All-New Episode for "The Greatest Action Game of All Time" To Ship in June

BELLEVUE, WA (March 29, 2001) - Sierra On-Line and Gearbox Software announce today Half-Life(r): Blue Shift, the newest episode in the award-winning Half-Life franchise, will ship to retail outlets around the world in June. Half-Life: Blue Shift allows fans of the franchise to interact with new characters and explore restricted areas of the Black Mesa Research Facility. The game's website, featuring a trailer for the game, went live today at the following URL, http://www.sierrastudios.com/games/hl-blueshift/.

Blue Shift is an all-new single player episode surrounding the Black Mesa security guard introduced in Valve's classic action thriller, Half-Life. In development by Gearbox Software, creators of the critically acclaimed Half-Life(r): Opposing Force(tm), Blueshift also contains the Half-Life HD Pack, which automatically upgrades the weapons and characters of all the games in the Half-Life saga with new high definition content.

"Blue Shift was created for Half-Life fans everywhere and we're very pleased to be able to bring it to the PC," said Randy Pitchford, Director of Gearbox Software. "In addition to the entirely new Blue Shift episode, the package also includes support for online play and the Half-Life HD Pack, which brings all Half-Life games to the next generation of graphics technology."

Half-Life: Blue Shift allows fans of the franchise to explore areas of the Black Mesa Research Facility where even Gordon Freeman never gained access. Half-Life: Blue Shift is a stand-alone product that does not require Half-Life to play. And in North America, Blue Shift will be sold with a full version of Half-Life: Opposing Force, winner of the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences Action Game of the Year Award.

Half-Life combines great storytelling with intense action and advanced technology to create an impressive, realistic world where players need to think smart to survive. Created by Valve LLC, Half-Life has won more than 50 Game of the Year awards from publications around the world, was named "Best PC Game Ever" by Imagine Media's PC Gamer magazine (November 1999), and has sold over two million copies worldwide on the PC.

Founded in January 1999, Gearbox Software is a team of veteran 3D game developers collected in Dallas, Texas. Half-Life: Opposing Force was the company's first offering to the gaming community and is the recipient of the prestigious 2000 Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences' PC Action Game of the Year. More information about Gearbox Software can be found at www.gearboxsoftware.com.

Sierra On-Line, Inc. http://www.sierra.com, a subsidiary of Vivendi Universal Publishing and part of the Vivendi Universal Games division, is one of the original developers and largest worldwide publishers of interactive entertainment and productivity software. Sierra is renowned for releasing critically acclaimed and award winning titles that represent a wide variety of computer entertainment on both next generation console and PC platforms.