Source 2 is a 3D video game engine developed by Valve Corporation as the successor to the original Source engine. The first game to use it was Dota 2, which was ported from the original Source engine in 2015.
Development
As far back as May 2011, one of Valve's largest projects was the development of new content authoring tools.[1] Included in this was Source 2, which they stated would replace older, outdated tools, allowing content to be created faster and more efficiently.[2] Valve also announced that the engine would receive a rendering path for the Vulkan API.[3] In addition, Valve announced that it would be using a new in-house physics engine named Rubikon, replacing Havok, which will visualize the physics in the engine's tools, getting rid of the need of having multiple windows.[4] Valve intends to make the engine free to use for game developers, as long as the game is published on Valve's Steam game distribution platform.[5]
In June 2015, Valve released a beta update for Dota 2, titled "Reborn", becoming the first game using the Source 2 engine. The original Source client for the game was phased out in September 2015, with the Source 2 update becoming official.[6][7][8][9] In April 2017, Valve announced that they would be porting Counter-Strike: Global Offensive to Source 2 later in the year.[10]
