Valve announces Source 2 engine

Written by David Hing

March 4, 2015 | 11:12

Tags: #counter-strike #game-developement #half-life

Companies: #valve

Valve has unveiled its new game engine Source 2, a successor to the Source engine that has been powering the studio's games for the last 11 years.

Source 2 will be available for free with Valve taking a cue from the Unreal Engine, which transitioned to a free-to-download model earlier this week.

'With Source 2, our focus is increasing creator productivity,' said Valve software developer Jay Stelly. 'Given how important user generated content is becoming, Source 2 is designed not just for the professional developer, but enabling gamers themselves to participate in the creation and development of their favourite games.'

Stelly's comments regarding user generated content are consistent with other moves that Valve has taken recently with regards to the Steam Workshop program, which the developer is opening up to other third party titles this year. Since the Steam Workshop launched in 2011, content creators have earned more than $50m with Valve earning a cut on top of that, so user generated content is something that makes sense for the developer to focus on.

A version of Source 2 will also be available that is compatible with cross-platform cross-vendor 3D graphics API Vulkan, which Valve believes will allow developers to get the most out of graphics hardware.

A release date for Source 2 has not been revealed and Valve has not confirmed any projects that it has in the works that will use it, allowing plenty of room for wild speculation to begin over the possibility of Half-Life 3 being in the pipeline.

The original Source engine saw the first game built with it get a commercial release in 2004 with Counter-Strike: Source.
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