Valve Announces Source Engine 2, Steam Link And More At GDC
Valve had a pretty busy time at GDC 2015 last night, but we're sorry to report that Half-Life 3 wasn't revealed, although the publisher did have some interesting announcements to make.
Source Engine 2 was revealed and Valve announced that much like Epic's Unreal Engine 4, it will be free for developers to use. Source 2 is the successor to the original engine that was released way back in 2004 and has been used on games such as Half-Life 2, Team Fortress 2, and more recently Titanfall.
"With Source 2, our focus is increasing creator productivity. 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 favorite games," said Valve's Jay Stelly. "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 PCs dominance as the premiere content authoring platform."
Probably the most interesting announcement for us though was the reveal of Steam Link, a small piece of hardware that allows you to stream games from your PC to the TV or other devices in your living room in 1080p and 60Hz quality. It will be released in November for $49.99.
Valve also revealed Lighthouse, a "room scale tracking" VR input system, which sounds a bit like Kinect or PlayStation Move. It will be free for developers to use and allows them to perform high resolution, high speed tracking.
"Now that we have Lighthouse, we have an important piece of the puzzle for tackling VR input devices," said Valve's Joe Ludwig. "The work on the Steam Controller gave us the base to build upon, so now we have touch and motion as integrated parts of the PC gaming experience."
Think you'll pick up Steam Link when it launches in November? What do you think about the other announcements? Let us know!