Question is, can Counter Strike: Global Offensive match the clout of its predecessors, especially given the smorgasbord of games released between now and the last CS title.

CS:GO launches on August 21st on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC with an obligatory zombie mod for the PC version, so don’t miss your chance to pre-purchase and get into the game early.

According to these findings, Valve could be developing a next generation Source 2 engine. References to the same have been found within the Source Film-maker, recently released by Valve.

The Paste bin and file path read as the following:

…/SourceFilmmaker/game/sdktools/python/global/lib/site-packages/vproj/vproj.py”

Line 1387:

”’Return an str with the current engine version.
If key doesn’t doesn’t exist, assume ‘Source’, otherwise invalid — assume next-gen ‘Source 2′.”’

This is one of apparently 60+ references. There are also references to Source, Hybrid, and Source 2, speculation being that Hybrid is the base for Source 2.

No news on how this affects, say, Half Life 2: Episode 3, but investigations are on-going. Another user has reported finding Source 2 tools within Source Film-maker.

Valve hasn’t officially confirmed or denied anything, but they have said Source is “about to get even better” at one point. Stay tuned for more.

Source Filmmaker, a tool used to create movies, is now free for everyone to download provided you have Steam and has entered open beta, Valve has announced.

“The SFM is a storytelling tool Valve developed inside the Source Engine to create all its animated short films, including those in the “Meet the Team” series of Team Fortress 2 shorts,” wrote Valve.

“The SFM condenses the production pipeline of an animation studio down onto a single gaming PC. To help the community get started, the SFM includes all assets from Team Fortress 2 along with assets from two of the “Meet the Team” short films.”

You can download the tool from over here. You can also head to Steamcommunity to find the newest and top-rated work done by the community.

Tell us what you think in the comments section below.

Valve has announced a new program called Source Filmmaker, which allows people to create their own Team Fortress 2 clips with the same visuals Valve does. In the video they released they mentioned that the software “shrinks the entire production pipeline of an animation studio onto a single PC.”

The software will be released this year for the PC. “The goal of the SFM was to develop a storytelling tool that allowed us to create computer animated movies more efficiently, and with greater creative freedom,” said Valve designer Bay Raitt.

“Over the past five years, we’ve produced more than 50 animated shorts with the SFM. The Source Filmmaker will allow our community to create their own movies in Team Fortress 2 and in their own Source SDK-created mods.”

Check out the video below, which shows how Valve uses the software, and explains its advantages.