Valve Reportedly Working on Source 2 Engine

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By Catherine Cai
published

This might explain why Valve's been holding back on Half-Life 3.

It's been nearly eight years since Half-Life 2 first released. Since then, fans have been clamoring for the sequel that'll continue the tale of Gordon Freeman. Year by year, hype for the franchise has been steadily building, yet any sign of Half-Life 3 continues to elude us, so much to the point that it's become an Internet meme.

Now, it looks like there's a reason why Valve's been putting off the conclusion to the trilogy. Recently, Valvetime.net user Barnz did some digging into Source Filmmaker, Valve's video capture and editing software for Team Fortress 2, and discovered coding that pointed to the existence of the Source 2 engine. The file, located in the path file
".../SourceFilmmaker/game/sdktools/python/global/lib/site-packages/vproj/vproj.py", references the Source 2 engine with the following comment in line 1387:

"Return an str with the current engine version.

"If key doesn't doesn't exist, assume 'Source', otherwise invalid -- assume next-gen 'Source 2'."

There are more references to the Source 2 engine in the Pastebin file of the source code here, if you want to see for yourself.

While this news doesn't confirm the reference of Half-Life 3, or even reference it, being busy developing the Source 2 engine seems a good enough excuse as to why it hasn't rolled around yet. Considering the amount of hype now for the game, it's no surprise that Valve wants to "wow" fans with a Half-Life 3 on newer technology.

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Catherine Cai
42 Comments Comment from the forums
  • dalethepcman
    now if they would actually release info on HL3...
    Reply
  • aftcomet
    I'll face giant backlash for this, but in MY opinion I don't get the fuss over Half-life. I find it really overrated. I loved Portal/2 but HL1/2/e were major "mehs" for me. Are they bad games? Not at all. But they're not nearly as amazing as people make them out to be.

    At least that's how I feel.
    Reply
  • toddybody
    The time Valve is taking on HL3/HL2 Ep3 is ridiculous. It seems their efforts have been focused mostly on Steam...which is awesome, but gimme the good stuff. And the games they have made in the interim have been "ok"...not what HL2 was for so many people.
    Reply
  • mboyer87
    Not trying to break people's hearts here, but Valve employees have been referring to the engine that runs LFD2 and Portal 2 as 'Source 2'.. so there might be a misunderstanding here, just throwing that out there.
    Reply
  • bunkgoats
    @ aftcomet: When did you begin playing the games? While they have aged gracefully, in my opionion, if you played them several years after they came out, then I could see how you might be underwhelmed. If you played the games when they were released, then they were unmatched in terms of story, game play and technology.

    Am excited for Half-Life 3, but its been so long I will need to replay the older games or read the wikis on the older games to remember the plot lines.
    Reply
  • bunkgoats
    mboyer87Not trying to break people's hearts here, but Valve employees have been referring to the engine that runs LFD2 and Portal 2 as 'Source 2'.. so there might be a misunderstanding here, just throwing that out there.
    If this is true then you have a great comment that adds to the discussion, but it would be even better if you provided a cite.
    Reply
  • schnitter
    Brace yourself for Source 2 as we all know there never will be Source 3 or any other "3" when talking about Valve.
    Reply
  • aftcometI loved Portal/2 but HL1/2/e were major "mehs" for me.
    I have to disagree. Portal 1 and the Orange Box in general were absolutely astonishing games, but from what I've played of Portal 2 so far, it really feels like a shameless sellout. Portal 2, in my opinion, tries way too hard to be as successful as the first, and instead just turns out to be insufferably obnoxious.

    I miss the days of the Orange Box when three AAA titles were packaged into a single $50 purchase. (At that time TF2 was a great game, haven't cared for it since the introduction of the in-game store)

    Since then, Valve has been doing great things (Mac, Linux, and mobile support, L4D, Source Filmmaker, improving the Steam client in general, etc), but I agree that the next HL installment is now long overdue.

    I really hope that Valve doesn't let this community down and not only delivers on HL3/HL2EP3, but delivers the kind of quality that we have learned to expect from the series. So many franchises have been going down the shitter lately, I really don't want to see it happen to HL. If that means I have to wait for Source 2, then so be it!
    Reply
  • mcleodglen
    We are now working on new projects based on the Battlefield 2 engine and we are growing quickly.
    Reply
  • leongrado
    Frankly, I don't play Valve games for graphics. I've been playing Counter Strike Source for years and the graphics are extremely outdated compared to modern games. It's just a fun game though so it doesn't matter. Half Life 2 had good graphics for it's time but even playing it now, you don't notice the outdated graphics because the game emphasized environment and immersion without having anything that looked extremely realistic.
    Reply