Current events

Source Beta SDK

21 Nov 2005: It seems the Beta SDK is upon us! Ladies and Gentlemen, start your engines!

steam.exe -beta sdk
Note: The parameter is case sensitive. 

Red Orchestra is also coming to Steam!

21 Nov 2005: Following hot on the heels of Darwinia, this month's PC Gamer UK carries the news [1] that the celebrated WWII UT2004 mod Red Orchestra, which won the 'Make Something Unreal' competition and with it an engine license, will be released standalone over Steam this January.

More information

3DBuzz Half-Life 2 Level Design Video Tutorials Released

17 Nov 2005: 3DBuzz has released Half-Life 2 Level Design video tutorials that teach Hammer Editor basics. You need to register(free) first, then click Video Training button at the top of the page. 18 Nov 2005: More video tutorials have been added, now the series is over 3 hours total.

Darwinia is coming to Steam!

15 Nov 2005: In last week’s Update News Valve spoke of a new game that would be arriving on Steam 'before the end of the year'. It seem Introversion have let the cat out of the bag early: Darwinia will be available on Steam on December the 14th!

Press release More information

Garry's Mod v9.0.3 Released

07 Nov 2005: The long awaited Garry's Mod version 9 by Garry has finally been released. This mod features integrated LUA scripting, so any server or map can contain new and exciting gamemodes. Garry recommends downloading it from the Coral Network cache here ( a mirror ) or through Bittorrent here.

Half-Life 2: Lost Coast Now Available

27 Oct 2005: Valve's long-awaited release of The Lost Coast is now available to all owners of Half-Life 2. There are high system spec recommendations of a 2.2Ghz processor, 1GB of RAM, and a DX9 compatible video card, but everyone should be able to play.

Mike Dunkle Presents at the Asian Game Developer Summit

26 Oct 2005: Back on the 11th of Oct Valve's Director of Cafe Operations, Mike Dunkle, presented a session at the AGDS event in Kuala Lumpur, focusing on Valve's Steam distribution system. You can read an overview of his session in this article over on GameDev.net and grab a copy of his slides. Robert "Fuzzy" Crouch also presented a session about Team Dystopia's experiences working with Valve's SDK, a wrap up of this session is also available from GameDev.net

Chinese translation of Source SDK Documentation underway

23 Oct 2005: Chinese developers started to translate SDK Documentation into Chinese with it's largest HL & HL2 Community MODChina.com.

DIEC2005

DATED18 Oct 2005: Robin Walker will speak at DIEC2005 (Digital Interactive Entertainment Conference) in Kyoto. Other speakers include Shigeru Miyamoto (Nintendo), Hideo Kojima (Konami, MGS series), Toru Iwatani (Namco, Pac-man), and Nolan Bushnell (Atari founder).

Gamasutra English Article :Japanese Conference Gets Miyamoto, Kojima, Iwatani

Japanese seminars

18 Oct 2005: Softimage Japan (and its ex-intern) hosted two seminars that introduce the concept of "MOD", XSI|Mod Tool, and HL2 modding to Japanese audiences — educators, game press, professional developers, hardcore&future modders. Pictures here (famitsu.com article).

Half-Life 2 XBox to PC

15 Oct 2005: Valve have revealed their intention to port even more of their Half-Life 2 XBox code to the PC version of the Source engine. In an e-mail posted on HalfLife2.net, Robin Walker talks about introducing the XBox codebase's streaming techniques, which work for 'everything except entity and brush data' and potentially allow for the reduction and even removal of loading times, similar to UE3's map streaming technology. There is 'no timeframe' for the code's arrival.

Household DEATH

10 Oct 2005: Household DEATH!, an HL1 Mod, v1.2 has been re-released.

Nightfall demo

5 Oct 2005: The NightFall team has just finished its demo at the WGC finals, and has a big news write-up at its site.

Dreamscape: Pin Point Blank

1 Oct 2005: The Dreamscape: Pin Point Blank mod has released some brand new media to look at!

Steam visual overhaul

11 Oct 2005: The new Steam UI is officially released.

6 Oct 2005: A beta trial of the new Steam look is underway. See UIBugs for details.

29 Sep 2005: A major 'visual overhaul' has been announced for Steam. Among the changes are improvements to the level of promotion given to mods, and looking ahead a 'distribution system that will work for free content...that should be pretty useful for MOD developers'. More details on the Steam Forums, hlcoders and The Steam Review.

Day of Defeat: Source released!

28 Sept 2005: Day of Defeat: Source is out!

Older events

The Dystopia demo has been released! Download it from one of their mirrors and join in the fun!

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The Jurassic Rage team have kindly released the source code for their mod's multi-passenger vehicles to the community! Get the files here.

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Gabe speaks: Gabe Newell Steamed

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MINERVA, the episodic single-player project for Half-Life 2, has released the first map: Metastasis 1. Downloads, screenshots and more at the MINERVA project site...

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Team Dystopia have updated their site with photos and a brief report from Microsoft's TechEd convention. They were invited to demonstrate what can be achieved with the Source SDK and Microsoft development tools, demonstrating to a large audience and running their mod on top of the line Alienware computers!

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Microsoft has released a new site dedicated to modding for the SDK on their Microsoft Developer Network. It's lacking content at the moment, but does confirm that Valve and Microsoft are working together to get Visual Studio 2005 Express Edition to properly compile the SDK.

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Valve has now released the Steam-compatible version of the High-Definition pack for Half-Life 1. If you want more detailed, more realistic models for the classic Half-Life game and Opposing Force and Blue Shift expansions, click away! Install/Uninstall Links added to The steam:// browser protocol page.

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Subscribers are beginning to recieve their early copies of CGW magazine, which features nothing short of a Valve bonanza. Look forward to new ally AI in Aftermath, a new HL2 episode every 3 months, Steam 3.0 with a completely new architecture, and more besides. Get all the details here!

Additional coverage on 1UP.com, for those of you with a paper allergy...

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Taito has opened Half-Life2 Survivor official page - the arcade game version of HL2. There will be an announcement at AM show(Sep 1-3).

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Valve is hiring! If you think you've got what it takes, follow the link and see if you can help out.

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A Few Good G-Men is also featured in this week's Escapist magazine, as one of the 'Casual Friday' bonus articles.

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Garry's Mod is the feature of an article in this week's The Escapist free online magazine.

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The Insurgency mod team have released their first screenshots! Head over to Their site right now to see them.

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Valve have signed a distribution deal with Electronic Arts. A distribution deal means EA handle the physical media while Valve retain full IP control - they are essentially self-publishing with EA's retail muscle timing in where they can't.

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Take a look at this brilliant new HL2 machinima by R. Glass, A Few Good G-Men. (Bittorrent mirror)

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http://www.valvesoftware.com has been updated with a whole new style and up-to-date information. Go and have a look!

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SiN 2 has been announced! It will use Steam and Source to become the first episodic, publisherless, AAA title ever made. More information.

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GameSpot has several new screens and a new Q&A session with Robin Walker on Half-Life 2: Aftermath, the first post-Half-Life 2 episode. Contains spoilers.