Although this isn't much of a surprise, it's always great to hear it from an official Vale source, as with all of its projects, nothing really gets announced until its ready. Discussed for the first time at GDC, Valve's new engine will, much like the recently announced Unreal Engine release, be entirely free to use, for not only developers, but end users too.
Valve also talked about a new type of collaborative development, which would allow gamers to contribute to the creation of their favourite games, while they're being made.
"Given how important user generated content is becoming, Source 2 is designed not for just the professional developer, but enabling gamers themselves to participate in the creation and development of their favorite games," Valve’s Jay Stelly said.
This is something that would have sounded completely bizarre a few years ago, but in the light of games like Kerbal Space Program, which have used unofficial mods to expand the game as it's being developed, this move by Valve makes a lot more sense.
On top of that, Valve's new engine will support the recently announced Vulcan API, which essentially acts like a new generation of the OpenGL platform. Much like AMD's Mantle technology and Microsoft's DirectX 12, Vulcan should allow near direct control over the GPU for developers, meaning they can squeeze out extra performance if needed.
