Valve: Last News

Steam has announced the most popular games on Steam Deck over the past 12 months, with Baldur’s Gate 3 topping the chart.“It’s been roughly two years since we launched Steam Deck, and we thought we’d take a look at the games being played on it the most in its second year,” wrote Valve, ranking the games in order by highest daily active player count.Larian Studios’ Dungeons & Dragons-inspired party-based RPG topped the ranking, with time survival rougelike Vampire Survivors coming in second.Elden Ring, Hogwarts Legacy and casual management sim Dave The Diver rounded out the top five most popular Steam Deck titles from March 2023 to March 2024.Palworld came in sixth, while Helldivers 2 was 34th. The full list can be seen here and you can check out the top 20 below:Baldur’s Gate 3Vampire SurvivorsDave The DiverHogwarts LegacyElden RingPalworldCyberpunk 2077Grand Theft Auto 5Stardew ValleyRed Dead Redemption 2HadesBrotatoThe Elder Scrolls 5: SkyrimThe Witcher 3: Wild HuntSlay The SpireCult Of The LambDead CellsThe Binding Of Isaac: RebirthMonster Hunter: WorldPersona 5 RoyalReleased in August last year, Baldur’s Gate 3 became one of the biggest, most successful games of 2023.

Dota 2 and Scotch whisky brand Ballantine’s have collaborated in celebration of the game’s 10th anniversary and unveiled two limited-edition Ballantine’s Finest x Dota 2 bottles.As well as this, an exclusive short film featuring the characters Brewmaster, Juggernaut, Lina, Marci and Monkey King on a quest to secure a dram of Ballantine’s has been revealed. Check it out below:Fans outside of Asia will be losing out, however, as the whisky bottles are exclusive to China.“Ballantine’s has a storied history of collaborating with the unexpected, especially partners who have stayed true to their original vision,” said Mathieu Deslandes, global marketing director of Ballantine’s at Chivas Brothers, in a press release.“Dota 2 is a globally iconic game, with a particularly big influence within China’s gaming community, so it was a no-brainer for us to work together during this historic year for the game.”Earlier this month, Ballantine’s collaborated with AC/DC to create a limited edition whisky as “a tribute to the world’s Finest music artists” in its ‘True Music Icons Collection’.It also crossed over with Borderlands 3 after appointing Mad Moxxi as its chief galactic expansion officer (or CGEO) of the brand.

Counter-Strike 2 players are no longer able to pull off a “Michael Jackson peek” thanks to a game update, but they’ve replaced that with a “Shakira booty dance”.Earlier this week, Counter-Strike 2 players were using a custom control to lean their character’s body out of the way of bullets, and the result looked somewhat similar to Michael Jackson‘s lean in ‘Smooth Criminal’.While it was entertaining, Valve removed the “foot pinning bug” that let players perform the trick in the most recent patch.The update also solved the spaces where players could clip through ceilings in some maps, adjusted Inferno, Mirage, Nuke, Overpass, and Vertigo, improved player visibility and added a few Steam Workshop tools.Yet, it did not take the Counter-Strike 2 community long to find another musical artist to emulate in their matches (via Dot Esports). Repeatedly pressing “A” and “D” on the keyboard causes the player character to sway back and forth.

Counter Strike 2 players have discovered a trick that lets them seemingly dodge bullets, and in practice it looks a little like Michael Jackson‘s lean in ‘Smooth Criminal’.Reported by Rock Paper Shotgun, the “Michael Jackson Peek” in Counter-Strike 2 is achieved by running in the game while inputting a custom key bind. It’s as easy as pasting this code into the game’s autoexec file in the player’s Steam folder on their PC.When active, the player’s character leans in a similar way to the lean seen in Michael Jackson’s music video for ‘Smooth Criminal’ in 1988.

Counter-Strike 2 players have aired their aggravation that the sequel is missing a number of features from Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.Counter-Strike 2 was free for all players of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive as an upgrade to Valve‘s Source 2 engine that was already running in its other games like Half-Life Alyx.Through it, the game got significant improvements including sub-tick architecture that instantly registers motion, shots, grenades and more as well as a total visual overhaul.Counter-Strike: Global Offensive was fortunately not deleted by Valve and remained as an offline “demo” in players’ Steam collections.

Valve has stated that those who “associate” with Counter-Strike 2 cheaters will be subjected to penalties too.“When one or more party members get convicted of cheating and permanently banned, all their associates will be penalised with loss of Profile Rank and CS Rating,” Valve said in the Counter-Strike 2 release notes published on Wednesday (September 27) to Steam.This was in and amongst announcements about various changes to the sequel including the Training Day tutorial for new players, correcting footstep sounds in certain locations, separation of casual and deathmatch maps into different groups, animated eyes on player models, and chickens that will finally fall off the Vertigo map.The word “associates”, however, doesn’t offer much clarity about what that might mean. It could be a player that continually and consciously teams up with someone who’s proven to be cheating in order to gain a dishonest advantage in matches.If a player happens to be a part of a team that’s cheating, although they were unaware of that, it’s hoped that they’re not caught in the crossfire of the developer’s sanctions.At the time of writing Valve has not added any explanation on what “associating” with a cheater constitutes.

Garry’s Mod modder Dave Hunt, also known as “Dav0r”, has passed away at the age of 35. The news was shared on social media and in Facepunch Studios‘ Discord server by his friends.Hunt was the designer and developer of the Tool Gun, an item that let Garry’s Mod players wield different functions in the sandbox Source engine mod with one tool.

Valve is reportedly blocking games with AI-generated content from being sold on Steam.As the AI debate rages on, Steam has taken a pretty definitive stance – it will no longer approve games that are submitted with AI-generated assets.A reddit post from industry veteran Simon Carless has revealed that a game he submitted which contained AI images was blocked by Steam.“I tried to release a game about a month ago, with a few assets that were fairly obviously AI-generated,” he revealed. “My plan was to just submit a rougher version of the game, with 2-3 assets/sprites that were admittedly obviously AI generated from the hands, and to improve them prior to actually releasing the game as I wasn’t aware Steam had any issues with AI-generated art.”Instead, he received the following e-mail in response:“While we strive to ship most titles submitted to us, we cannot ship games for which the developer does not have all of the necessary rights.”PSA: Valve has been quietly banning newly submitted Steam games using AI-created art assets – if submitters can't prove they have rights for the assets used to train the algorithms: https://t.co/WhWpJpaFjl pic.twitter.com/5KhzJESYxk— Simon Carless (@simoncarless) June 29, 2023“After reviewing, we have identified intellectual property in [Game Name Here] which appears to belongs to one or more third parties.

Dark And Darker developer Ironmace has reportedly sent a letter to Valve, asking the company to return the game to Steam amid a lawsuit alleging theft.Over the last few months, MapleStory publisher Nexon has alleged that Ironmace’s multiplayer fantasy game Dark And Darker was created by former Nexon employees with stolen code and materials.While the allegations led to developer Ironmace’s offices being raided by Korean authorities, a DMCA takedown filed by Nexon also resulted in Dark And Darker being removed from Steam last month.As reported by Gamesradar, Greenberg Glusker lawyer Aaron Moss has since issued a letter to Valve asking it to let Dark And Darker return to Steam.Moss alleged that Nexon’s DMCA was “based on claims that are entirely without merit and contains knowing and material misrepresentations that Dark and Darker infringed Nexon’s copyright interests”.Moss went on to label Nexon’s actions as “nothing more than anti-competitive bully tactics designed to put a small indie game studio out of business”.“At best, Nexon has taken a handful of unprotectable elements and cobbled them together to form the illusion of a copyright infringement claim,” wrote Moss. “This case comes down to the fact that Nexon does not want any of its former employees to work at an indie studio developing a fantasy-themed extraction game.

Counter-Strike 2 will bring a fresh look for a number of the series’ most iconic maps, including the likes of Nuke and Dust 2.Announced yesterday (March 22), Counter-Strike 2 is a free upgrade for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive that makes a number of significant changes to the series.Ahead of its summer launch, Valve has revealed that while some Counter-Strike maps have been entirely rebuilt in its Source 2 engine, others have been given smaller upgrades or visual makeovers.Valve revealed that the series’ most iconic map – Dust 2 – has been marked as a Touchstone map, meaning it’s been given “improvements to lighting and character read” but nothing else.Meanwhile, the likes of Nuke have been reimagined with “new Source 2 lighting, including a physically based rendering system that produces realistic materials, lighting, and reflections”.Finally, Valve used Overpass as an example of a map that’s been given a full overhaul — meaning it’s been rebuilt from the ground-up in Source 2.You can check out side-by-side comparisons of each map here, while the below video shows them in action and outlines how Valve has approached each makeover.As for what else Counter-Strike 2 has in store, Valve has shared that it will overhaul “every system, every piece of content and every part of the C-S experience”.These overhauls include newly-dynamic smoke grenades, along with a significant change to make the tick-rate of servers irrelevant for moving and shooting.

11 Bit Studios has announced it will no longer be giving game keys to Steam curators after a majority were resold.Taking to Twitter to make the announcement, 11 Bit Studios wrote: “Starting today (September 2) we won’t be granting game keys to Steam curators.”“Based on our and other devs’ experiences, most of the requests come from fake accounts used to gather and resell the keys and the published reviews don’t seem to bring any value for the community anyway,” they added.Responding to one fan who was seemingly confused by the statement, 11 Bit Studios added: “You’d be surprised at the number of emails we receive with a message more-or-less like this: ‘Hello, this is Curator Dude from the Totally Legit Curator on Steam. I very much love your game and Totally Legit Curator fans are waiting for a review.

Valve has banned several Steam curator groups, after it was alleged that they were owned by a small number of people who were using the system as a means to resell keys.On Sunday (August 28), developer Cowcat alleged that its latest game, Brok The InvestiGator, was being targeted with negative reviews. This was due to Cowcat issuing Steam curators who had requested a key with a prologue version of the game, which could not be finished.Cowcat’s logic was that while legitimate Steam curators would get in touch and be issued with a regular key, scammers would resell the key without playing it – causing them to leave angry reviews when their buyers complained about the unfinished game.Shortly after Cowcat brought attention to the influx of negative reviews, a Reddit user found that every curator who left a negative review had their accounts created within the same two days, and all shared the same main admin.Since the key re-selling scam was uncovered, all groups that targeted Brok The InvestiGator have been banned from Steam.

Valve’s massively popular team shooter Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO). Released today (August 29), the mod is available for download straight from Steam itself here.Dubbed a “vehicular capture the flag gameplay mode for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive,” players can fire rockets at opponents, jump, and do a slam attack form the air to both capture and secure flags (via Dot Esports).Check out a short clip of CS:GO Kart from the self-proclaimed “two random dudes” below.A red and blue team will need to navigate the map, as seen in the above video, to get to the other teams base and steal their flag, in typical capture the flag game mode fashion.The mod was developed by Dieter Stassen and Luke Millanta, with Milanta telling Dot Esports: “Instead of playing as soldiers/humans you instead take the form of a rocket-firing go-kart. From here each team battles it out to capture the other team’s flag and return it to their base.“Every time they do this, they score a point.

Insomniac Games has confirmed that Marvel’s Spider-Man is now Steam Deck verified, ahead of the game’s PC release.The studio made the announcement yesterday, when it tweeted: “Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered is Steam Deck Verified!” Meaning it joins the likes of God Of War as a Sony PC port on the Valve handheld.The changes to the PC port for the Steam Deck haven’t been identified, but players can likely expect some edits to the user interface, so it can accommodate the much smaller screen.Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered is Steam Deck Verified! ✅— Insomniac Games (@insomniacgames) August 3, 2022This means there’s going to be a portable version of Marvel’s Spider-Man with a number of PC-focused improvements, which were outlined by Sony itself:Marvel’s Spider-Man coming to PC and Steam Deck marks the ongoing strategy of Sony, where it’s bringing its flagship games to PC a few years after they release, in an effort to expand the reach of its premium content.According to Valve, being verified means the game will have full controller support on the handheld, use appropriate icons, play seamlessly from the Steam Deck launcher, support to default resolution of 1280×800/720 and be supported by the Proton system.The PC port of Marvel’s Spider-Man is set to release on August 12, with a Spider-Man: Miles Morales port set for a later date.“On behalf of everyone at Insomniac and our close partners at Nixxes, we’re eager for you all to get your hands, mice, keyboards, and GPUs on Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered when it releases on PC on August 12!” wrote Insomniac.In other news, the Halo 2 challenge with a reward of £16,000, that requires the game to be beaten on the hardest difficulty with all skull modifiers – has been bested.

Half-Life 2: Episode 2 mod, We Don’t Go To Ravenholm, recreates the level’s eerie atmosphere.The Ravenholm mod has been in development for over a year and the creator, 3stripekilla has finally released a demo on ModDB allowing players to experience the recreation first-hand.The original location in Half-Life 2: Episode 2 only featured a few levels but remained one of the most memorable places in the game. According to the creator, the mod is about “bringing players the familiar feel, atmosphere and action of the original Ravenholm from Half-Life 2.”“In WDGTR [We Don’t Go To Ravenholm] you wake up as Freeman himself, but in a different place and different time,” the modder explained.

Steam Deck will soon have an easier time doing so, as Valve has announced that it is doubling down on production. This news comes via a post from the official Steam Deck Twitter page that reads: “Production has picked up, and after today we’ll be shipping more than double the number of Steam Decks every week!”Additionally, the post mentions that Valve “just sent the last batch of Q2 emails” out, while “Q3 reservation emails” will be sent out on June 30. The post also notes that those waiting on their emails can check their reservation status via the ordering page for Steam Deck by logging in.The handheld gaming device was released in February after several delays, and it can be purchased in three different versions: one for £349, another version for £459, and the most expensive going for £569.

Team Fortress 2 has been released, addressing several long-standing issues with bots and cheating exploits that were highlighted during the community’s recent #SaveTF2 campaign.The latest Team Fortress 2 patch was released yesterday (June 21) and although it doesn’t bring any new content, it does deliver fixes for several major issues fans identified during the recent #SaveTF2 campaign.This includes an exploit that was allowing bot accounts to change their username to mirror other players on a server, and a second issue that was letting players use sv_cheats “on secure servers”.The voting feature has also been updated, and will now allow both teams in a match to have a kick vote at the same time. The patch notes also say it has “fixed %killername% and other placeholder names sometimes showing up on the kill cam and stats screen,” which is a bug that has been present in the shooter for years.Other fixes include a bug that let players repeatedly spam noises with the Ap-Sap, and servers will now be able to give players a reason for why they have been disconnected.You can read the full Team Fortress 2 patch notes here.So far, reception to the latest Team Fortress 2 update has been very positive on the shooter’s reddit hub.“Wow, actual useful fixes.

Arkane Studios’ cancelled Half-Life 2 spin-off Ravenholm has been shown off in a video published online, over a decade since its demise. The footage was shared by Noclip – a YouTube channel making video game documentaries – yesterday (May 4), and it has multiple long chapters dedicated to the differing levels of the cancelled Ravenholm.As noted by Danny O’Dwyer, Noclip is able to show large pieces of footage due to a previous documentary where it visited Arkane Studios, and presents each clip with context. The build of Ravenholm in the video below was put together towards the end of development in an effort to show Valve progress of the game, even though it wasn’t complete.Each stint of footage is scored with context from O’Dwyer, who explains that despite the player having a HEV suit, the Half-Life title wouldn’t have starred Gordon Freeman.

Valve has announced that the Steam Deck now has over 2000 “verified” and “playable” games on it.A post on the Steam Blog begins with the announcement that over 2000 games have been marked in the “verified” or “playable” categories for the Steam Deck. These two tags indicate that games are either wholly supported by the Steam Deck (verified), or are playable but not be perfectly optimised (playable) for the handheld PC.To get “verified” for Steam Deck, games have to meet a strict set of criteria created by Valve.

VR headsets were delighted to play Half-Life: Alyx, the latest canonical entry in the Half-Life series, but it’s been pretty quiet for the series since. But now a mod team has created a new story called Levitation, which will offer up to five hours of gameplay in the campaign.The project is a collaboration between level designer and artist Shawn Snelling (also known as FMPONE) and animator Corey Laddo (thanks, PCGamer), and it’s still going to be in virtual reality.Outside of Black Mesa (which was endorsed by Valve and allowed to be sold on Steam), Levitation looks like one of the most impressive fan-made projects for the series so far – especially going off the brand new trailer, which you can watch below.The trailer shows some beloved characters returning for Levitation, such as Russell (from Half-Life: Alyx, originally played by Rhys Darby), and G-Man.

Steam,  Valve has explained that it’s an issue with the company’s own bank. Earlier in the month, Ukrainian Steam developers started receiving emails from Valve that  read: “Due to the current environment, we are unable to send bank payments to Belarus, Russia and Ukraine.”One such developer based in Ukraine, Stas Shostak, has since received another email from Valve, which apologised and explained the situation. According to the company, Valve’s bank has started requiring “intermediary bank information” for payments to accounts in Ukraine and Russia, as the bank “will no longer be allowing payments to Belarus.”So Valve clarified, it really is a technical problem and it's gonna be okay till April payment.