If publisher Vivendi is to be believed, the recent Half-Life 2 source code steal has lead to additional delays for the game itself. In fact, it has been pushed back until at least April 2004. The extra time is needed to rewrite part of the code that was stolen, which of course is mostly related to the multiplayer side of things. Should Valve disagree with Vivendi's assessment I'm sure we'll hear soon enough.

The theft of part of its source code has delayed until April 2004 the launch of "Half Life II", the hotly anticipated alien-hunting game of Vivendi Universal Games, a company official said. "A third of the source code was stolen. It's serious because it forces us to delay the launch of the game by at least four months, that is to April 2004. Just the time to rewrite parts of the game," VU Games president of international operations Christophe Ramboz told daily Les Echos in its Tuesday edition.