You know what I’d like to hear when I wake every morning? A major leak from a major company in the games industry to give us a peek into the future.
This time it’s Valve who’s bitten the dust.
*slurp*
A very appropriately named personality, “crazy buttocks on a train” (CBOAT) on the NeoGAF forums posted images of a Left 4 Dead 2 level rendered allegedly in Valve’s secretive Source 2.0 engine.
Source, the current version, has been around since June 2004 and made its debut on Counter-Strike: Source and later, Half-Life 2. It went on to be used in Portal and Portal 2 eventually. It still looks brilliant, no doubt, it’s the engine with the most finesse, but that’s a good ten year old ageing technology. And that makes the supposed Source 2.0 screenshot leak a pretty big deal.
I really can’t say whether this is real or not, but from the looks of it, this really looks like a Source two point O. Just look at the insane level of detail in the vegetation, especially the plants running around the circumference of the building. Here’s a view from a different angle.
The lighting has also massively improved and is almost photo-realistic, something Gabe Newell has vocally strived to achieve as he claimed during the initial announcement of Source 2.0. The number of objects on screen is ludicrously high. Notice the piled-up planks and twigs around the buildings, and the plant roots climbing up from the ground on the damaged pillars. Valve is known for seldom cutting corners, and this is proof of that.
Another recent leak of an internal Valve changelog did mention Left 4 Dead 3 with the codename “L4D3” as well as “Source2”, so this definitely hints to an upcoming new engine and game.
So there you go, sounds pretty convincing eh? I find it pretty believable, and if it’s not, then its a hell of an effort this “CBOAT” has taken to fake something like this. Check out the presentation screen he posted on on NeoGAF, looks like legit Valve property.
