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Gabe Newell Confirms That A Next-Gen Valve Game Engine Is In Development

News & Rumors Half-Life

UPDATE: In the very same interview, Gabe also revealed the fate of one of Valve’s most secretive game projects. Check it out, right here!

Earlier this summer, we found traces of code within the Source Filmmaker that clearly indicated Valve is actively working on “Source 2“, a next-gen game engine built on Source’s foundation. While the news made quite a stir all throughout the Valve community, it didn’t have the same effect it would have had, if Valve had officially confirmed Source 2’s existence.

Well, some months later, it appears we finally have been given just that. Read on!

Gabe Newell Confirms That A Next-Gen Valve Game Engine Is In Development

A week ago, on the 3rd of November, a large group of fans from 4chan’s game-centric imageboard, /v/, came over to visit Valve on Gabe’s birthday. They brought with them this absolutely colossal birthday card, as well as a very unique Team Fortress-themed birthday present: an actual real-life Mann Co Crate, which, just like the one from Team Fortress 2… was locked. The best part? Gabe had to pay $2.50 for a key. But it all paid off in the end, as Gabe “uncrated” a combat helmet, similar to the one the Soldier wears in TF2.

After the crate was unlocked, Gabe stayed to talk with the fans in Valve’s lobby, alongside his colleague, Erik Johnson. A full, 52-minute video of the birthday visit can be found on YouTube, here. We’re going to quote one of the more interesting exchanges, which you can find starting at approximately 6:07 in the aforementioned video:

Fan: Is Valve potentially already working on a new engine?

Fan: Source 2? Could or… could not be?

Gabe Newell: We’ve been working on Valve’s new engine stuff for a while, we’re probably just [incomprehensible, subtitled as: “waiting for a game to roll it out with”]

Fan: Is it going to be more than just an extension to Source? Is it an entirely new engine?

Gabe Newell: Yeah!

Quite intriguing, and strange how he was so candid about everything. Still, it’s all right there in the video, and considering what we found in the SFM files three months ago, I would dare say that Source 2 is almost certainly in development, and perhaps not so far from its launch; and this is the closest thing to a world reveal we’ll get, for a fairly long while.

According to the video’s description, there’s some more interesting stuff throughout the video, but I haven’t yet had time to take a look at everything. If you decide to watch all of it, and if you find anything interesting, then let us all know in the comments section down below! And by doing so, you will have forwarded the cause of science by more than 3 centuries; by which I mean I wouldn’t be surprised if it took Valve 3 centuries to release either Source 2 or Ricochet 2. Could be worse, though – their fear of the number 3 could drive them to delay it another century instead.

In any case, here’s the full video:

Article Sources

Slag Gaming and ValveTime.

19 Comments

  1. He also talks about the Arbitration and why steam had to change their TOS. Cool stuff!

  2. Hah, I’m glad someone thought my question on the new source engine was worth talking about.

  3. Fan: Is it going to be more than just an extension to Source? Is it an entirely new engine?

    Gabe Newell: Yeah!

    Yeah for wich question?

  4. I think we will most definitely see this new engine with the Linux port of L4D2 as seen in the leaked code. I say this is a little too open for them to talk about Source 2 if it wasn’t in some working form.

  5. So Gabe is yet to play Black Mesa? 🙁

    • So has Marc Laidlaw. I guess they’re waiting for the Steam release, which will probably have a load of revised, improved content, not to mention solid Steamworks integration.

  6. I just hope gabe really means HL3..and not REALLY Ricochet 2 XD

  7. AWESOME!
    it’s like my birthday today

  8. http://facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=1217651&p=38408354&viewfull=1#post38408354

    And we have now the confirmation from Gabe that SOB (Stars of Blood) was a space pirate game that never saw the light of day.

  9. Don’t forget… ‘Ricochet 2’ is in development.

  10. How this makes it “officially confirmed” ? I agree of course, he said it, but this is not the way you could name official.

  11. Just saw this on SPUF.

    Holy shhhhhhhhiiiiiiiiiiiii-

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