CSGO mapper FMPONE and Rust devs rave about Source 2 tools

The co-creator of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive map Cache has been raving about Source 2's mapmaking tool since late October.

There's a ton going on in CSGO right now. Fans have enjoyed some impressive professional CSGO games over the past several weeks, with international competition resuming at esports events including IEM Beijing and FLASHPOINT 2. On top of that, CSGO players have also been glued to CSGO's Twitter and official blog, praying for an update to come in that will bring a new operation to CSGO. But behind all of those things, some of the Steam Community's most important figures have all be talking about one thing: Source 2.

CSGO map makers are flocking to Alyx's workshop tools

It seems as though CSGO can't go a single week without another story about Valve's mysterious engine. It became much less mysterious Valve's release of Half-Life: Ayx, but more importantly with the first round of the game's Workshop Tools.

With the release of Half-Life Alyx came the release of a new version of the Source 2 editor allowing map makers and content creators to play around in the engine. Even though it wasn't a release of Source 2's full code, it was more than enough for the Steam Community to start playing around in Valve's highly anticipated engine. In fact, the Steam workshop even has entire asset packs of CSGO characters and models that can be imported into the editor.

Cache co-creator FMPONE has spent a serious amount of time with Alyx's Source 2 workshop tools, posting screenshots on Twitter of his current projects. In the comments on those tweets, FMPONE said that he was currently focused on VR and Half-Life: Alyx, but the fact that CSGO's modders and map makers are moving into using Alyx's development tools is a massive step towards players finally getting their hands on whatever Source 2 ends up bringing to CSGO.

CSGO map maker catfood, who modeled both de_ruby and is currently working on a de_tuscan remake with original Tuscan modder Brute, hasn't publically made the jump to the Alyx's engine like FMPONE. But early protype screenshots look an awful lot like the Source 2 shots of imported and newly created Source 2 maps for Team Fortress 2. The difference is very noticeable in the map's transitions between shadowed and unshadowed areas.

Rust developer Facepunch Studios creating Garry's Mod successor with Source 2

This is probably the biggest development in Source 2 news to date outside of the release of Valve's Hammer Map Editor various other Source 2 tools with its May release. Garry's Mod basically takes Half-Life 2, CSGO, Team Fortress 2, and other Valve games and throws them into one big pot. The community has used Garry's Mod for years to create maps and game modes of all kinds, from the Trouble in Terrorist Town mod that inspired Among Us to just strapping 15 scientists to a rocket before blasting them into space. But after working with the Unity Engine when Facepunch began development on GM2, codenamed s&box, Facepunch founder Garry Newman announced that the game would be created in Source 2 on October 27.

"We've switch engines again, but for the last time," said Newman.

It was always planned to be this way, but Newman and Facepunch now have more access to the Source 2 than possibly anyone else in the word. Facepunch is one of the only devs WIN.gg could verify being given access. The developer seems to have become close with Valve thanks to Facepunch's work keeping older Valve IPs relevant with its work on Garry's Mod. s&box becomes even more interesting since Facepunch is also the developer of Rust, the survival shooter that includes base-building elements and some other well-known models, like this male character rendered in the Source 2 engine that Facepunch has access to.

Rust's internal codebase has already been re_named to "old_rust," and comes with the implication that there's a "new_rust," likely joining s&box on the Source 2 engine. According to Newman himself, s&box won't be a VR-only game. Since the studio waited for Valve access to Source 2 to start development in earnest, this means that there's much more behind the engine than Alyx's VR gameplay.

Given the wait, most players will believe it when they see it.