Steam has just been updated. This time, the change list is all but a single line, fixing a pesky crash issue on Windows 2000 and "unpatched" XP. While news of that update can be considered unremarkable, there is some much larger news at hand. Last week after being tipped off by a reader, Jessica reported that several Source powered mods would be distributed through Steam.

Today, the mods have gone live through Steam, meaning there is need to download pesky clients or multiple updates in order to try out what the community have created. If you fire up your Steam client and own any games which use the Source Engine, you'll now be able to download the following mods through the Steam directly: Age of Chivalry, D.I.P.R.I.P. Warm Up, Insurgency, Synergy and Zombie Panic.


Age of Chivalry, D.I.P.R.I.P Warm Up and Insurgency
Doug Lombardi, Vice President of Marketing at Valve Software had the following to say regarding mod availability through Steam:

Valve has been supporting the MOD community since the company's inception, offering updates to the SDK, holding MOD Expos and being the first to bring a MOD to retail with Counter-Strike in November 2000. The debut of these MODs on Steam marks the beginning of a new level of support for the MOD community by putting the leading MODs at the finger tips of over 15 million targeted gamers.

In order to pledge further support to the mod community, Valve are currently offering Half Life 2: Episode One for US$4.99 on Steam. This move sees anyone who does not yet own a Source engine based game able to quickly (and easilly) try out a bunch of game mods.


Synergy and Zombie Panic
For more information about the available mods, check out their respective assets on the mirror. (Age of Chivalry), (D.I.P.R.I.P. Warm Up), (Insurgency), (Synergy), (Zombie Panic), or have a look at our recent coverage. If you're eager to play any of the mods, we're currently working on getting servers hosted for some (if not all!) of these mods. Expect them in the coming days.

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Thanks to fLaMePrO for this submission!
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