In the Game: Source 2

After months and months — or, more properly, years and years — of speculation, Valve has officially announced Source 2 Engine, the second iteration of the engine that’s powered all the studio’s games since 2004’s Counter-Strike: Source and Half-Life 2. And, in a move that’s sounding pretty familiar after the past few days (with Epic’s announcement on March 2 that their Unreal Engine 4 would cost users nothing, bar a 5% royalty fee, and Unity Technologies’s creation of a free but stripped down option of their Unity 5 source engine), Source 2 is free to use.

“We will be making Source 2 available for free to content developers. This combined with recent announcements by Epic and Unity will help continue the PC’s dominance as the premiere content authoring platform,” said Valve’s Jay Stelly in a prepared statement.

“Given how important user-generated content is becoming, Source 2 is designed not for just the professional developer, but enabling gamers themselves to participate in the creation and development of their favourite games,” he continued.

The official announcement brings to a close an extended period of leaks, culminating in shots of a remastered Left 4 Dead level that came out last year. Ultimately, this is great news for indie developers, as it gives them greater power and opportunity to create and innovate without a price tag preventing them from achieving their vision.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *