Half-Life 2 DM, Source and lighting

[SAS]

Steam have announced plans to release a new Counter Strike map, HL2 deathmatch updates and a remake of the Highway 17 chapter containing "dynamic range lighting" with fresh gameplay. This will be made free to everyone with HL2.

Over the next month or so there will be a couple of interesting releases via Steam, in addition to the upcoming Counter-Strike map cs_compound.

First, we'll be releasing an update to Half-Life 2: Deathmatch that will include the Slam, Stunstick, and the Crowbar. We're not ready to release the contest winning maps just yet, but we will be releasing a new map we've built at Valve to tide people over while we sort out the contest winners. There will also be a release to Counter-Strike: Source around the same time that will address a few minor issues.

One feature that we'll be adding to the Source engine in the coming months is high dynamic range lighting. To showcase this we've taken a part of the Highway 17 chapter of Half-Life 2 and worked it into a single level that incorporates HDR along with some new gameplay. We're calling this short level "The Lost Coast," and it will be made available free of charge to Half-Life 2 customers that meet a specific set of high end hardware requirements. We'll be publishing those requirements soon.