Confirming suspicions, Valve releases a new multiplayer mode alongside the game"s SDK; Steam instantly swamped.
When Half-Life 2 was released, many were disappointed that its only official multiplayer mode was Counter-Strike: Source, a re-creation of the original terrorists-vs.-commando Counter-Strike using Valve"s Source engine. Well, it now appears that may soon change. When it released a patch for the stuttering problem that plagued many Half-Life 2 players, Valve announced that the game"s Software Developers" Kit (SDK) would be released with a " surprise for the community."
Today, gamers were given a pretty strong hint at what that "surprise" would be. An image (pictured) appeared on the news page for Steam, Valve"s download service, which appears to show a multiplayer deathwatch set in a map from Half-Life 2, not Counter-Strike: Source. A quick right click of the image gave further credence to this since, since it is name is "HL2DM.jpg"--the "DM" presumably being for "deathmatch." Above the image was a single word--"SOON."