Valve, the creators behind Counter-Strike and the Half-Life series, have released a brand new free game today. Alien Swarm, originally an Unreal Tournament 2004 mod, is a 4 person co-op top-down shooter that has been developed into a brand new standalone game.
The team that was originally hired to develop Alien Swarm, back in 2008 as Neowin reported, also worked on the Left 4 Dead series and Portal 2 while working on Alien Swarm in their spare time.
Valve also released the Source engine SDK and full Steamworks integration, which would allow any user to develop a mod with the Source engine using Steamworks. As Valve puts it, “this release provides more insight and examples for using Steamworks in game production.”
The game features eight different characters and allows you to choose four different weapon classes, similar to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and other FPS games. Players will also gain experience and level up as they play, unlocking different items, just like MW2.
You can download it via Steam now.
View: Alien Swarm’s Official Website