What may seem like a terrible news at first, should actually bring us a sigh of relief. No longer shall we be confused about the black and orange "flavours" in which the next Half-Life 2 episode will be packaged, because Valve has cancelled the PC-exclusive Black Box pack, leaving only the larger Orange Box collection. The latter also includes the original Half-Life 2 game and the first expansion (HL2: Episode One), so those who already have these PC titles and were hoping to get away with just the Black Box, will have to pay an extra $10 for the full deal.

In IGN's report, Valve's Doug Lombardi makes the following couple of noteworthy mentions:

"Those who purchase the PC version of The Orange Box will get three separate Steam product codes: One for the three new games (ed. - Episode Two, Team Fortress 2 and Portal), one for HL2, and one for Episode One. This way a PC Orange Box owner can give away their Half-Life 2 or Episode One unused Steam product codes if they don't need a copy of those games."

Just to make things perfectly clear, here are the five titles bundled in the Half-Life 2: Orange Box pack:

- Half-Life 2

- Half-Life 2: Episode One

- Half-Life 2: Episode Two - the second installment in Valve's episodic trilogy advances the award-winning story, leading the player to new locations outside of City 17.

- Portal - a pioneering type of single player action game that rewrites the rules for how players approach and manipulate their environment - much like how Half-Life 2's Gravity Gun reinvented the way gamers interact with objects in the game.

- Team Fortress 2 - an all-new version of the legendary title that spawned team based multiplayer action games. The game's daring new art style features the most advanced graphics of any Source-based game released to date.

Last we heard, the Half-Life 2: Orange Box for the PC (priced at $50) was still on for an autumn 2007 release, with the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions (priced at $60 each) set to follow later this year.

P.S. Valve confirms plans to stay independent.

(N.B. Archive text, links removed)