The other team worked for Activision on "". Using an early version of the Source engine, development was finished in October 2004. Due to contractual obligations with Valve, Activision was not allowed to release the game before Valve released "Half-Life 2", scheduled for release in November 2004. Troika Games used the interim period to code a patch into the main program. "Bloodlines" was released on November 16, 2004 (the same day as "Half-Life 2"). Critics praised "Bloodlines" visual, audio and story but warned about a bug-ridden game. It got a rating of 80% on Metacritic, and sold merely 72,000 units on original release. With the addition of the game to the digital distributors Direct2Drive and Steam in 2016, a significant number of units were sold digitally. For instance, approximately 550,000 people own the game on Steam as of March 2017.