Today Epic Games announced that it has teamed up with Valve Software to help integrate Valve’s free Steamworks tools into all Unreal Engine 3 licensees.

This means that in the future games that use the Unreal Engine 3, like Batman: Arkham Asylum and BioShock, will be able to utilize some of the features that make Steam so great. These include auto-updating, social networking, matchmaking and a non intrusive DRM (and we all know how important that is). Read more… »

The Team Fortress 2 WAR update has been the largest update to TF2 yet, with both the Demoman and the Soldier receiving new unlocks and a bloody war in which to participate, not to mention the massive community contributions that went into making the WAR update a successful one.

In addition to updating the game, Valve ran a propaganda contest for the artists of the community to submit their best works. After receiving a whopping 11,000 entries, the team finally had a chance to go through them and pick out the cream of the crop. While the winners have already been announced, the runners up show just how hard a decision the TF2 team had when it came to picking out just three.

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Today developer Valve released some details about its Steam service, specifically pertaining to how its user base grew in 2009.

According to Valve Steam now has over 25 million active accounts, a 25% increase from 2008. Another note worthy statistic is that software sales on Steam increased by over 205% during 2009, “marking the fifth straight year the platform has realized over 100% year-over-year growth in unit sales.”  Read more… »

Well as you can probably tell there was a positive reaction to my first L4D2 scavenge guide, so I figured I better make good on my promise and get going on Part II. If you happened to miss out on Part 1 of my guide, click here.

While my last guide focused on helpful, general tips for beginners, this guide will go slightly more in depth with map specific strategies for three of the most popular maps (Dead Center, Dark Carnival, and The Parish) and more advanced tips and tricks. Like the previous guide, I’ve split this one into three sections: Survivor tips, Infected tips, and map guides. Read more… »

Well, those people who still maintain that Left 4 Dead 2 is an expansion are about to be really confused, as Valve today announced the first of its DLC add-ons for the popular zombie apocalypse simulator.

The ironic part? It’s expanding by looking backward, tapping the four survivors from the first game for encore appearances.

But that’s not all–not by a long shot. Check out the rest of the post below to get the gory details.

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For those who live and die by Team Fortress 2, there’s something new to get excited about.  As you all know, Valve has been continually releasing small updates and patches for the game that has prolonged the lifespan for much longer than anyone would have imagined.

Well, those crazy tech-savvy geniuses have given us something new to get excited about: crafting abilities.  That’s right, now you can turn useless weapons and excessive hardhats into scrapping metal.  Read on for more information. Read more… »

Today developer Valve proudly announced that its zombie slaying shooter Left 4 Dead 2 has sold “over 2 million retail copies” since its November 17 release.

The announcement that Valve sent out today reads, “[Left 4 Dead 2] appears to be on target to become one of the top selling Xbox [360] and PC titles for the month of November.” The developer added “sales to date are more than double the original [Left 4 Dead]” and that L4D2 has “already been played by over 1 million Xbox LIVE Gold account holders.” The announcement ends with “news regarding L4D2 DLC 1 is coming very soon.” Read more… »

In the history of gaming, developing quality AI partners has always been a tremendous challenge.  While very few dev companies can pull off the miracle, many fail utterly.  And no matter how grand Valve’s latest title may seem, it suffers from incompetent AI as well.

Since Left 4 Dead 2 focuses on multiplayer, we can never get too upset toward dumb AI.  In fact, the only people to blame is yourself for playing single-player in the first place.  Nonetheless, this is quite hilarious and should be seen by everyone. Read more… »

It seems that Modern Warfare 2 can’t keep away from controversy. At first it was the lack of dedicated servers. This was followed by the controversial “Fight Against Grenade Spam” video. Then there was the leaked scene where you can kill civilians. Now digital distributors Direct2Drive, GamersGate, and Impulse are refusing to carry the game.

Why? Apparently these distributors aren’t fans of Steam. According to a statement from Direct2Drive, “We believe strongly that when you buy a game from us, you shouldn’t be forced to install and run a 3rd party software client to be able to play the game you purchased.” The company went on to say “We don’t believe games should force the user to install a Trojan Horse.” Read more… »

Today Valve announced another pre-order incentive for Left 4 Dead 2. If you pre-order the co-op zombie shooter off of Steam or redeem a retailer-provided pre-order code, you will receive a new hat for your Team Fortress 2 characters.

To be specific the hat is Bill’s beret from Left 4 Dead. According to the TF2 Blog, “This is not fan fiction! This is not a dream sequence! The characters from Team Fortress 2 will team-up with Bill’s hat from Left 4 Dead 1!”

To find out how these two worlds collided, read on. Read more… »

Today marks the seventh anniversary of the Half-Life RTS/FPS modification Natural Selection. In celebration of this event, independent developer Unknown Entertainment sent out some screen shots of its upcoming sequel Natural Selection 2.

Slated to arrive on Steam sometime in 2010, NS2 promises to deliver the same intense multiplayer action as the first. If NS2 is a “must buy” for you, you might want to pre-order it; you’ll get early access to a level editor and the beta.

To see the screen shots, hit the jump. Read more… »

I absolutely love it when game developers get into the Halloween spirit. Usually they send out funny little press releases or Halloween themed trailers, but not Valve. They went way above and beyond what any other developer has done by releasing a patch for Team Fortress 2 that adds a whole bunch of Halloween themed content.

Dubbed “The Terrifying Team Fortress Haunted Halloween Special” update, the DLC adds exploding pumpkins, five new achievement that unlock “Mildly Disturbing Halloween Hats,” and a new map called Harvest.

To find out more about the new update hit the jump. Read more… »