Prerelease:Counter-Strike: Condition Zero

To do: Differences between the trailers and the final game.

This page details prerelease information and/or media for Counter-Strike: Condition Zero.

Condition Zero is a cautionary tale on what it takes to follow up on a great game like Counter-Strike.

Sub-Pages

Rogue Entertainment version The first iteration of Condition Zero, a traditional Half-Life-like single-player experience.

Gearbox Software version The second iteration of Condition Zero, with a focus on an arcade-like single-player experience similar to the Tour of Duty of the final game.

Ritual Entertainment version The third iteration of the game developed by Ritual Entertainment would later get released alongside the final iteration developed by Turtle Rock Studios as Counter-Strike: Condition Zero Deleted Scenes.

Development Timeline

2001

• April: Rogue Entertainment starts developing the game.
• May: Gearbox Software takes over the project after Rogue's producer, Jim Molinets, leaves the company.
• August: Gearbox unveils the game, with it slating to release on the 1st quarter (January-March) of 2002.
• November: Counter-Strike: Condition Zero is rapidly approaching alpha stages.
• December: The game is stated to be "feature-complete". According to Randy Pitchford, there were 25 maps divided into 6 campaigns with only minor polishing left to do.

2002

• February: Condition Zero would be delayed until the second quarter of 2002, because of expanded ambitions.
  • 19 February: The game appears on its first ever big media event in Europe, the Vivendi Universal Games faire on Paris, France.
• March: After Europe, it was time for the game to be shown in North America at the GDC (Game Developer's Conference), where the focus was on the bot AI. Shortly after, Valve decided that the game needed to be a more conventional linear shooter, in a similar vein to Half-Life.
• May: This new linear experience was put on show at E3 2002 on NVIDIA's suite, with another delay, this time for Autumn/Fall of 2002.
• July: Gearbox ceases developments on Counter-Strike: Condition Zero, presumably because of Valve's decision for a linear shooter instead of the arcade-like experience developed previously.
• August: Valve hands the game over to Ritual Entertainment.
• December:
  • 6 December: Ritual Entertainment's involvement was revealed to the public.
  • 20 December: The game gets showcased on the CPL (Cyberathlete Professional League)'s winter tournament as a hands-off demo. It is now slated for release on May 2003.

2003

• February:
  • 25 February: Condition Zero is shown on the Vivendi Universal Games faire on Berlin, Germany. This time, however, the attendants got to try out the game for themselves.
• April: An exclusive trailer gets released by Computer Gaming World.
• May: The game is now shown on E3 2003, with some slight changes in the game's design, such as dropping the number of missions to 19. By that point, Condition Zero is now "98% complete".
• June: Ritual now suffers financial problems, which result in a huge amount of layoffs at the company, but those layoffs did not affect Condition Zero's development. It was also this month where internal playtests reveal that the game had serious issues and wasn't ready for release on June. Due to this, Valve decided that Condition Zero needed to be handed over to Turtle Rock. It wasn't all bad, however: Ritual's version of the game eventually got released as Condition Zero: Deleted Scenes.
• July: This problem gets worse when various gaming magazines in Europe recieve review copies of the game and publish very mediocre reviews.
• August: Vivendi Universal showcases the game at the Leipzig Games Convention, unaware of Valve's decision of changing developers.
• September: Sierra Entertainment released a new trailer showcasing the game, also unaware of Valve's decision.
• October: The infamous Half-Life 2 leak happens when Valve's servers were compromised. Alongside the well-known leaked build of Half-Life 2, there was also an early version of Condition Zero under the name "cstrike_trs".

2004

• January: Counter-Strike: Condition Zero would get leaked another time to kick off the new year.
• February:
  • 25 February: Vivendi would announce the final release date of Condition Zero: 23 March 2004.
• March: The game finally releases, after not one, not two but four different development teams working on it, all with completely different direction to rather mixed reviews.

Trailers

Gearbox Trailer

A trailer released during Gearbox Software's time in development. This trailer would showcase a lot of maps and features that were scrapped (or altered) when Ritual took over.

Ritual Trailer

A much later trailer released during Ritual Entertainment's time in development. This trailer would show off the new, linear campaign developed by Ritual as well as the new multiplayer maps.