valve-software posts

We knew that there would be free DLC for Portal 2. It was just a matter of time before it would be announced. Today Valve announced that its puzzle-shooter sequel would officially get its first free DLC pack this summer. The pack will be free for all of its platforms (PC, Mac, PS3 and Xbox 360).

The pack itself will contain "new test chambers for players, leaderboards, challenge mode for single and multiplayer modes, and more." Of course the free DLC pack with the promise of more to come just makes Portal 2 a bigger bargain than it already is.

[Via email press release]

It's almost a no-brainer that Valve would be providing post-release downloadable content for Portal 2. The developer has always been good about releasing new (and free for PC owners) content for its games over the year. However it's always good to get the official word that new stuff for the puzzle shooter sequel is on its way in the near future,

At the end of a (spoiler filled) interview with Valve team members on the Fast Company web site, Valve's marketing head Doug Lombardi states, "We will be announcing some DLC for it, so folks can keep a look out for more content coming this summer. We'll be putting more details out about that in a week or so. We'll support that with more videos or more comics." Hopefully we will see stuff that was cut from Portal 2 that was shown in the game before its release such as the Pneumatic Tubes.

With the Portal 2 ARG event now completed, some of the Potato Sack indie game developers involved in the unique marketing event for Valve's puzzle-shooter are taking about their involvement. Two Tribes, who had two games in the the ARG (Toki Tori and RUSH) posted up an article on their web site that talks about putting the Portal 2 themed content into their games over the length of the ARG.

Othe developers like Gaijin Games (Bit.Trip Beat) and Hidden Path Entertainment (Defense Grid The Awakening) also talk about their work on the ARG which started out with Valve inviting all the developers last December to work on the project. The result was a ton of extra free content for all 13 games (levels, puzzles, and more). Much of it will remain in the game after the ARG is finished.

There's something that's up in Portal 2 land. Game Informer's web site reports that it received a memo today. That memo leads to an web site address with the above image and countdown clock that happens to expire at 9 pm Eastern time tonight or less than two hours from this news post.

Game Informer speculates that this could be the first Portal 2 DLC release thanks to the memo mentioning "Pneumatic Diversity Tubes". These tubes were shown in videos for Valve's puzzle shooter sequel in 2010 when the game was first announced but for some reason didn't make it into the final build of the game. Will this be the first of many DLC releases? Stay tuned.

Update: Looks like whatever the update is will have to wait; the site is currently down.

Update 2: False alarm: It's just the creators of the Valve ARG Wiki thanking Valve and the game developers of The Potato Pack for their role in the Portal 2 ARG.

An extensive behind-the-scenes feature on the making of Portal 2 is now available to read, but at the moment the only format for the article is via downloading an app for the Apple iPad. GameTrailers.com host Geoff Keighley is doing something a little different for his feature The Final Hours of Portal 2.

The article can be downloaded for the iPad via iTunes for $1.99. For that amount you get a huge 15,000 word feature that shines a spotlight on all of the development behind Valve's hit puzzle shooter sequel. It chronicles Valve's efforts to make the game, including a canceled plan to make a prequel to Portal set in the 1950, via exclusive photos, videos and other "interactive experiences". It will be interesting to see if this experiment in game journalism is a sales success. There's no word if the app will be made available for other platforms.

As expected, developer Valve has moved quickly and released the first patch for the PC version of Portal 2. The patch, delivered automatically via Steam, has a number of bug fixes and a new feature that enables joystick support in the game.

Among some of the bug fixes listed in the patch notes are dealing with the "unrecoverable black screen in elevator save" and also fixing a "GC memory leak". There have also been some "various localization content improvements" including adding "support for English subtitles in Turkish builds". Various fixes for unnamed game crashes have also been put into the patch.

Valve is pretty notorious for keeping most of the hard sales numbers from its Steam PC game download service to themselves. So it's not a shock to learn that Valve won't be providing sales figures from Steam to an upcoming UK-based sales chart for PC game downloads.

Speaking to MCV, Valve's Jason Holtman called the idea of such a sales chart "old" saying, "The point is, it's not super important for a publisher or developer to know how well everyone is doing. What's important to know is exactly how your game is doing – why it's climbing and why it's falling. Your daily sales, your daily swing, your rewards for online campaign number three. That's what we provide."

While Valve may not believe it's important, it has been frustrating to not get a better idea of how PC game sales are really impacted by digital download sales when that information is kept secret.

In a major about face for Microsoft, the publisher announced today that the upcoming PC version of developer Lionhead's fantasy RPG Fable III will be made available for purchase and download via Valve's Steam service as well as Microsoft's own Games For Windows Marketplace web site. Fable III will be the first Microsoft published game to be sold on Steam.

Microsoft and Valve have been rivals in the PC game download business as well as for extra PC game services (Steamworks vs Games For Windows Live) so Fable III's appearance on Steam is a pretty huge change of pace for Microsoft. The game will be made available for pre-orders later today on both Steam and Games For Windows Marketplace. Games For Windows Marketplace will offer Fable - The Lost Chapters, the PC port of the first game in the series, for free as a pre-order special. In addition Steam pre-orders will also get the exclusive Rebel's Weapon & Tattoo Pack, which adds four exclusive weapons and five character tattoos. The game will be released via these outlets and via retail stores on May 17.

Update: Games For Windows Live has now put up its pre-order page for Fable 3 as has Steam with its own Fable 3 pre-order page.

Portal 2 is already being praised as one of the best games of 2011, if not of all time (ignore the Metacritic trolls). Now it looks like the puzzle-shooter sequel from Valve will be getting an extensive behind-the-scenes feature via Gametrailers.com host Geoff Keighley.

Keighley, who previously did a huge "The Final Hours of Half-Life" feature for Gamespot way back in 1998, will apparently return to Valve for an article called "The Final Hours of Portal 2". A teaser site for the game is already online but there's no word on when the article will be released or what kind of format (written word, video, both) the feature will be presented.

We have been wondering when there will be a Portal 2-Team Fortress 2 crossover and, well, we were not disappointed. Developer Valve has announced in a funny post on the Team Fortress 2 web site that owners of the multiplayer first person shooter will find that a number of its hats can be used by Portal 2's co-op robots if players own both games.

Specifically, the TF2 hats that are available in Portal 2 are the Mann Co. Cap, the Prince Tavish's Crow, the Pyro's Beanie, the Fancy Fedora, the Master's Yellow Belt and the Tyrant's Helm. Have fun making the bots look sillier than they already do.