Valve Announce Source 2, Because Why Not

Because they can't do anything normally, after a day of daft conspiratorial rumours about an announcement at 3pm on the 3rd of the 3rd, Valve have finally and properly announced the existence of Source 2 via email at 15.54. The Source 2 they definitely weren't making for all those years, and then sort of appeared in DOTA 2 code. And they're aiming to make it amateur friendly. And free! Oh, and Steam Link too.

After years of denying its existence, painstakingly explaining that Source was an iterative engine that was upgraded all the time, out of the blue the (potential) developer snuck it out in DOTA 2 last year, and have now finally revealed that it definitely exists after all.

"With Source 2,"says Jay Stelly, "our focus is increasing creator productivity. 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."

And putting themselves squarely in the way of Epic and Unity, it's going to be "free to content developers." Or as they put it, "This combined with recent announcements from Epic and Unity will help continue the PC's dominance as the premiere content authoring platform."

There's also to be a "Vulkan-compatible version of the Source 2 engine," a cross-platform, cross-vendor 3D graphics API "that allows developers to get the most out of the latest graphics hardware, and ensures (sic) hardware developers that there is a consistent, low overhead method of taking advantage of products." Which are some words.

There's no word yet on whether there will be licensing requirements for selling games made with Source 2, but that'll likely become clear from tomorrow when we meet with Valve to look at all this new gubbins.

Steam Link, meanwhile, is a new product designed to stream Steam all around your house at 1080p and 60Hz. It'll be out this November at the same time as the new controller, and also cost $50. Quite how it's different to the in-built streaming Steam already offers across your home network is not clear. Again, hopefully we'll have answers tomorrow.

They also throw in a few boasts about Lighthouse, which they say solves issues of high resolution, high speed tracking in VR, and involves a low enough "BOM cost". Phew!

We should have a whole bunch more details for you tomorrow, IF YOU'RE GOOD.

Half-life 3 is a dream you once had.