Tag: Valve Software

Valve surprise launched Counter-Strike 2 on Steam

Valve kept its promise and launched the free CS:GO 2 update that overhauls the classic multiplayer game right before the end of September

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Just as it seemed like Valve might break its promise about the CS:GO 2 release date, the Steam-maker came through and quietly launched the free CS:GO 2 update. The multiplayer game‘s revamp was a quiet affair, released with no big announcements or anything other than a new Steam page and a brief trailer highlighting some of the sequel’s changes.  quietly launched the revamp with no fanfare and no proper announcement. 

“For over two decades, Counter-Strike has offered an elite competitive experience, one shaped by millions of players from across the globe,” Valve says in the Steam description. “And now the next chapter in the CS story is about to begin. This is Counter-Strike 2.”

“A free upgrade to CS:GO, Counter-Strike 2 marks the largest technical leap in Counter-Strike’s history. Built on the Source 2 engine, Counter-Strike 2 is modernized with realistic physically-based rendering, state-of-the-art networking, and upgraded Community Workshop tools.”

Over 1 million players flocked to the game within minutes, and while the numbers have since calmed down slightly from the 1.4 million high on Sep. 27, 2023, there are still 950,000 people playing CS:GO 2 at the time of writing.

Where big launches like Baldur’s Gate 3 broke Steam earlier in the year, the platform remained stable in spite of the sudden influx.

CS:GO 2 includes new ratings and leaderboards, updated maps, and “dynamic” smoke effects. That last one sounds like a silly marketing point, but if the trailer is anything to go by, it looks like it actually changes the game quite a bit. 

Your CS:GO items should have transferred over to CS:GO 2, so you won’t lose anything once you download the update.

CS:GO 2 is a free-to-play game and only requires a Steam account. You can pay $14.99 to get Prime status, though it’s not essential. Prime status means you can get matched with other Prime players and earn Prime-exclusive items, drops, and weapon cases. All the items are cosmetic, so aside from the matchmaking, you aren’t missing out on anything that would alter your experience with the game.

Written by Josh Broadwell on behalf of GLHF

Valve announces Counter-Strike 2 will launch soon as a CS:GO update

Counter-Strike 2 is real, and Valve said it’s coming soon as a free update for the popular CS:GO multiplayer game

Counter-Strike 2 is real, and Valve said it’s coming soon as a free update for the popular CS: GO multiplayer game. Counter-Strike 2 will launch sometime in summer 2023, but if you’re keen to see what Valve has in store before then, you may have a chance. Valve is selecting some CS: GO players to test an early version of Counter-Strike 2 as the team evaluates a handful of features.

Despite having a “2” in the name, this isn’t the second Counter-Strike game and is more like Overwatch 2 in the sense that it’s largely a technical improvement over the original. Counter-Strike 2 will replace CS: GO when it launches in the summer and promises a number of improvements over CS:GO.

One small change that Valve hopes has substantial effects is how smoke behaves. In Counter-Strike 2, smoke will move, reflect, and billow more naturally, so you can use it to fill open spaces, cause confusion, and even distract enemies in buildings while you go about your business.

Old maps received a glow-up with new rendering effects, while some brand-new maps showcase the engine’s new light and read abilities. Maps are brighter and cleaner, though classic maps remain largely unchanged aside from lighting and a few other effects.

Valve also said Counter-Strike 2 runs on improved servers that log actions as soon as they take place, instead of recognizing actions at set intervals of time, or in “ticks.” The hope is that the FPS game will run more smoothly and be more responsive as a result. There’s no set release date for the Counter-Strike 2 update, and given the way Valve operates, they’ll probably announce the date seemingly at random one day when no one expects it.

Written by Josh Broadwell on behalf of GLHF

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Steam is shifting annual sales around

Starting next year, Valve’s PC storefront will have a massive sale every season.

Everyone loves scooping up goodies for ultra-low prices, particularly people that regularly play video games — and those penny-pinching folks should be aware that Steam is making some changes to certain sale events.

On Tuesday, Valve Software announced a significant overhaul to Steam’s major sale events. Firstly, the Lunar New Year promotion is gone entirely, with an all-new Spring Sale event replacing it. Apparently, this change came about because many game development studios and publishers insisted there should be more space between Steam’s four massive seasonal sales.

We also now know when the next three seasonal sales are happening. All the dates are below!

Steam Seasonal Sale Dates

  • Autumn Sale: Nov. 22, 2022, to Nov. 29, 2022
  • Winter Sale: Dec. 22, 2022, to Jan. 5, 2023
  • Spring Sale: Mar. 16, 2023, to Mar. 23, 2023

Typically, Steam’s Lunar New Year happens in early January, though it was a bit too close to the Winter Sale for many.

“Over the years we’ve received feedback that Lunar New Year was often much too close to the December holiday sale period,” reads a statement from Valve. “We think many publishers will still opt to discount games around the Lunar New Year holiday, using the custom discount tools.”

Makes sense. It gives everyone more time to save up for whenever new PC titles like Marvel’s Spider-Man and Ghostwire: Tokyo go on sale.

Written by Kyle Campbell on behalf of GLHF.

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Half-Life 2 is playable on Nintendo Switch via Portal

Portal: The Companion Collection was recently released on Switch and modders have already found a way to run Half-Life 2 through the game.

Portal: The Companion Collection was recently released on Nintendo Switch and already the modding community has found a way to run Half-Life 2 through the game.

As posted on Twitter, modder OatmealDome has discovered a way to get the sequel to Valve’s popular Half-Life running on the Switch. Using the copy of the original Portal included in Portal: The Companion Collection, they were able to edit in a playable version of Half-Life 2 using assets from NVIDIA Lightspeed Studios.

According to Oatmeal, the reason they could get the game working so quickly is that “Portal 1 is basically a glorified mod of Half-Life 2”. They went on to give the example that the Portal player code is based directly on the player code of Half-Life 2.

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The mod is by no means perfect. It crashes occasionally, not all of the maps are playable, NPC animations and world cameras don’t work, and most devastatingly, the mod lacks the ability to save. However, as it has been less than 24 hours since the game’s launch, what has been achieved so far is incredibly impressive.

Watching their gameplay footage it seems to play very smoothly when it’s not crashing. In the three-minute video we see our silent protagonist, Gordon Freeman, running around shooting down head crabs and driving in his buggy just like we remember. While the modder admits to having edited out the loading screens, it seems to play at a very stable frame rate.

It should be noted that this is definitely not intended by neither Valve nor Nintendo. In order to play something like this you require a modded Switch. Messing with the software on your console invalidates your warranty, and Nintendo won’t help you if it breaks.

It’s unclear whether Oatmeal will continue on with their project or if it was just a proof of concept. However, it shows that if Valve were to sell a Half-Life collection for Switch, it would be surprisingly easy given that the Portal architecture is already complete. Promising news for fans of alien shooters.

Written by Georgina Young on behalf of GLHF.

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Half of bitcoin transactions on Steam were fraudulent, according to Valve boss

Gabe Newell claims there were far too many dodgy bitcoin purchases.

Valve president Gabe Newell says that half of Bitcoin purchases on Steam were fraudulent. 

Back in April 2016, Valve began allowing Bitcoin as a purchase option on Steam. Though support did not last long, as in December of 2017, the company announced it was dropping Bitcoin support.

During a new interview with PC Gamer, Valve president Gabe Newell revealed that fraud played a considerable part in Steam ditching Bitcoin, and it sounds like he’s not a fan of cryptocurrency in general.

“The problem is that a lot of the actors who are in that space are not people you want interacting with your customers,” Newell said. “We had problems when we started accepting cryptocurrencies as a payment option. 50 percent of those transactions were fraudulent, which is a mind-boggling number. These were customers we didn’t want to have.”

These comments from Newell coincide with Valve’s Steam Deck launch, which he’s hand-delivering to some early adopters.

All of this partly explains Valve’s banning of all NFT and cryptocurrency games from Steam last year. Newell did claim the technology is not without merits, though he didn’t mince words about certain people’s intentions with NFTs.

“There’s a lot of really interesting technology in blockchains and figuring out how to do a distributed ledger, [but] I think that people haven’t figured out why you actually need a distributed ledger,” Newell continues. “There’s a difference between what it should be and what it really is currently in the real world. And that’s sort of where we were at with the blockchain-based NFT stuff: so much of it was ripping customers off.”

Newell has similar reservations about the Metaverse.

Written by Kyle Campbell on behalf of GLHF.

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Gabe Newell says most people advertising the metaverse ‘have never played an MMO’

The head of Valve didn’t mince words.

Gabe Newell, the president of Valve Software, isn’t that big on people hyping up the metaverse.

During an interview with PC Gamer, Newell explained that many of the metaverse’s trends that some companies are pushing as an exciting new thing are just old ideas many of us have already seen.

“Most of the people who are talking about metaverse have absolutely no idea what they’re talking about. And they’ve apparently never played an MMO,” Newell said. “They’re like, ‘Oh, you’ll have this customizable avatar.’ And it’s like, well… go into La Noscea in Final Fantasy 14 and tell me that this isn’t a solved problem from a decade ago, not some fabulous thing that you’re, you know, inventing.”

As an avid Final Fantasy 14 fan, I can confirm that practically every city-state within the game is more lively than any metaverse demo shown off thus far.

Newell is far from the only games industry veteran that’s not a fan either. Last month, PlayStation creator Ken Kutaragi spoke ill of the metaverse, even calling VR headsets “annoying” among other less-than-pleasant things. 

The metaverse has been a hot-button topic within the games industry for several months now, and we’ll likely be hearing about it for quite some time to come.

Written by Kyle Campbell on behalf of GLHF.

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Valve announces a free Portal spinoff for the Steam Deck

Aperture Desk Job is a walking simulator for Valve’s new device.

Aperture Desk Job is a new spinoff of the Portal series coming out on March 1, 2022, for the Steam Deck.

The announcement for Aperture Desk Job came Friday seemingly out of nowhere, with Valve having little to no fanfare that a new title in one of its flagship franchises is coming out. Not only that, it will be totally free-to-play on Steam too!

“Aperture Desk Job reimagines the been-there-done-that genre of walking simulators and puts them in the lightning-spanked, endorphin-gorged world of sitting still behind things,” reads the game’s Steam page. “You play as an entry-level nobody on their first day at work — your heart full of hope and your legs full of dreams, eager to climb that corporate ladder. But life’s got other plans, and they all involve chairs.”

Check out the launch trailer for Aperture Desk Job below

Valve stresses that Aperture Desk Job is not Portal 3. It’s barely even a full release, even. The store page describes it more as a tool meant to walk Steam Deck owners through the device’s controls and utilities. 

The Steam Deck shipments are beginning to roll out for early adopters, just in time to take Elden Ring on the go.

Written by Kyle Campbell on behalf of GLHF.

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The Steam Deck won’t be getting any exclusive games

No Half-Life 3 to be found here.

Valve confirms that the Steam Deck will not have any exclusives.

On a new FAQ page about the highly-anticipated handheld, a question addresses whether or not Valve will make exclusive games on the platform. The developer’s answer did not beat around the bush.

“No, that doesn’t make much sense to us,” Valve said  on the FAQ. “It’s a PC and it should just play games like a PC.”

That answer isn’t surprising, given Valve’s history. Despite developing and owning Steam OS for years, the studio has a pretty storied history of ensuring its games run on Windows, Mac OS X, and even certain Linux distributions. Steam itself likely  wouldn’t be the titan it is now  without Valve being somewhat open about what’s on the platform as well.

If exclusivity is the only thing that would lead to another Half-Life  sequel, I might be all for it. Sadly, there’s likely  no mainline series entry in development. 

Hype for the Steam Deck hasn’t slowed down much, even with Valve, unfortunately,  delaying the device until next year  due to supply chain issues. Nintendo is going through  something similar with the Switch, as is Sony  with the PS5. 

Written by Kyle Campbell on behalf of GLHF.

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Half-Life 3 is reportedly not in active development

Not at this time, anyway.

Half-Life 3  is allegedly not in development at Valve Software.

According to Valve News Network  content creator Tyler McVicker, some sort of real-time strategy title set in the Half-Life  universe for the Steam Deck may be in the works. When it comes to a full-fledge sequel to Half-Life 2, however, things aren’t looking good.

“No. At the current time, there isn’t a major development team working on anything outside of the few pieces of software that are specifically tailored for hardware right now,” McVicker said  on YouTube. “Valve is trying to get the Steam Deck out and, like many people have observed, the Steam Deck has been significantly more successful than originally anticipated, so Valve is throwing a lot at it.”

This information would line up with the fact that  Valve recently had to delay the Steam Deck  due to supply chain issues and being unable to meet demand in time for its original December release date.

“Half-Life 3, Half-Life 2: Episode 3 [or] any kind of traditional mouse and keyboard FPS at Valve is not taking place,” McVicker continues. “If it is, it’s a very small group of people and those individuals will not be seen as value-generating by the higher-ups.”

Not exactly what most of us want to hear, though by this point anything that isn’t a  Counter-Strike: Global Offensive  or  DOTA 2 player is used to this kind of report on Valve. At least  Steam seems to be doing quite well. 

Written by Kyle Campbell on behalf of GLHF.

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Steam surpasses more than 27 million concurrent users

Black Friday helped the platform reach new heights.

Steam set a new concurrent user record at 27 million on Saturday. 

As first spotted by GamesRadar, Steam’s peak concurrent record is 27,384,959 users, according to  SteamDB. Of all those accounts, more than 7,835,449 were in-game. The latter statistic did not break the platform’s previous record, though, that’s still held by April 2020 at 8,171,592 in-game concurrently.

There’s no doubt that Steam’s annual  Black Friday Autumn Sale had a significant impact on these figures. Many games got a second wind during sales, including  CD Project Red’s open-world RPG  Cyberpunk 2077. Plus, a little free-to-play shooter called Halo Infinite  is a big hit, even as  developers acknowledge its battle pass issues.

Valve Software, the company that owns and operates Steam, is likely pretty happy that the platform continues to gain popularity. Due to supply problems, the company recently  delayed its highly-anticipated handheld gaming PC, the Steam Deck. A problem that  Nintendo is all too familiar with currently, as is Sony. 

Valve’s games played a part in this new concurrent record, of course. Counter-Strike: Global Offensive  and  DOTA 2 were the first and second most played games over the weekend, respectively. Either title is rarely dethroned from those spots, however.

Written by Kyle Campbell on behalf of GLHF.

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