Red Orchestra Heads To Steam

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Tripwire Interactive today announced that its popular WW2 mod Red Orchestra is heading to Steam as Red Orchestra: Ostfront 41-45. Red Orchestra for UT2004 won NVidia's $1,000,000 Make Something Unreal contest, and with the Unreal Engine 2.5 license won through the contest the game will now be a stand-alone product. There's no word on when Red Orchestra: Ostfront 41-45 will show up on Steam.

"Digital content delivery is the future of gaming, and we are very excited to be a part of that future" said Tripwire Interactive President John Gibson. "Working with Valve to release the game over Steam allows Tripwire to remain independent and keep control of the games content and development. This allows Tripwire to continue to offer our fans the same uncompromising level of realism, authenticity, and gameplay they have come to expect from Red Orchestra while continuing to innovate and push the boundaries of the military FPS and simulation genres."

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From The Chatty
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    November 21, 2005 1:26 PM

    I'm confused. Is the new RO using the Source engine this time around?

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      November 21, 2005 1:26 PM

      no, its still Unreal Engine powered

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        November 21, 2005 1:27 PM

        Doesn't this bring up licensing issues?

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          November 21, 2005 1:32 PM

          Good for them, glad to see something come out of that contest, other than a bunch of great mods that no one actually plays

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          November 21, 2005 1:32 PM

          This is exactly what I thought. Them making it on the Source engine is the only thing that made sense, but now...wtf? Are more Unreal engine games going to appearing on Steam? Is there some kind of deal between Epic and Valve now?

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            November 21, 2005 1:34 PM

            I don't think a game has to use Source to be on Steam. Steam is just a content delivery system.

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            November 21, 2005 1:35 PM

            Steam is a distribution platform, not a game engine. One has nothing to do with the other. Someone could release a game from any engine on it, not just Source.

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            November 21, 2005 1:35 PM

            If an Unreal Engine licensee has a contract to distribute their game as they see fit, they can do it on Steam just as they could do it through any other means.

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            November 21, 2005 1:36 PM

            RO has nothing to do with Epic, therefore there is no need for a deal between Epic and Valve. They won the Unreal Engine license from the contest therefore they can do as they wish with there game.

            Steam is a content downloading system, not a Source content downloading system.

            Ragdoll Kung Fu also has nothing to do with Source.

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              November 21, 2005 1:37 PM

              I thought Ragdoll Kung Fu used Source (for the physics)?

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                November 21, 2005 1:49 PM

                source doesn't have it's own physics engine, it uses havok i believe.

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                  November 21, 2005 1:53 PM

                  Yea, it uses Havok, but I thought it was heavily modified :(

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                    November 21, 2005 2:07 PM

                    Well yeah, anytime a developer has to integrade any sort of middleware into their own software, it'll have to be modified to get it to work properly. The core physics code is probably still original Havok code though.

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                      November 21, 2005 2:57 PM

                      I know that, just sayin' I think Ragdoll Kung Fu uses the source engine and not something he created himself using Havok.

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                        November 21, 2005 2:59 PM

                        RDKF doesn't use Source. It was developed completely independently of Valve or Source before Valve picked it up for distribution on Steam.

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      November 21, 2005 1:33 PM

      Look, there is no tie between Steam and Source.

      Sure, they can interoperate, and benefit from it, but Steam is not restricted to Source-based games. Steam and Source should be considered separate.

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        November 21, 2005 1:36 PM

        That's news to me. Why aren't more games headed for Steam then? Do they charge a lot for access, or something?

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          November 21, 2005 1:40 PM

          Notice a certain something with the third party games that are coming to Steam so far? They are independent productions, without a real publisher like EA/Activision. That changes everything.

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            November 21, 2005 1:42 PM

            I know that, but I'm curious why we don't see more budget titles or small games from independant developers on Steam.

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              November 21, 2005 1:43 PM

              steam is young...it's a year old now, and it started off a bit unstable. Now that things are looking up I think it's much more inviting.

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              November 21, 2005 2:55 PM

              In the last 3 months we've seen 3 games added... that's a pretty decent release rate. If they saturated it with a game a week or something, nobody would buy any of them. Right now each new title has time to simmer, standing alone as the "new release" in your steam window when you launch, before getting bumped out of the way by another new shiny icon in the list.

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              November 21, 2005 4:55 PM

              because of the very reason why HL2 and Vivendi were suing each other left and right: well financed games have contracts with publishers that won't allow anyone else to distribute (and thus make money) from the game other than the publisher!

              as for companies that have made a name and money for themselves and could easily dump their publisher (i.e. ID software, 3DR), I believe reps from such places have said that they simply don't want to trade one publisher for essentially another - why trust a competitor, if they can make it and people love it, we can do it eventually too.. (again, i.e., 3DR partnered with some online distributor that specializes in just that, and doesn't compete with them in the FPS market)

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                November 22, 2005 11:55 AM

                Vivendi's counter suit had no merit. Also, Valve is 100% privately owned and never received any funding from Vivendi.

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            November 21, 2005 1:42 PM

            changes everything for the good. It may be the last chance for indy developers.

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          November 21, 2005 1:42 PM

          Quite the opposite I'm sure, or we wouldn't be seeing small independent productions using it.

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          November 21, 2005 1:45 PM

          It bloils down to cost from what I hear. It doesn't make sense for other devs to use Steam, but for an independent or a mod maker it's one of the few routes to a retail customer.

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        November 21, 2005 3:02 PM

        So in any case does this mean Valve acts as the distributor and gets some bucks?

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          November 21, 2005 5:00 PM

          Probably, though I believe their motivation is that Valve isn't a traditional publisher that finances a game and then acts as a slave driver/director of how and when the game should be made... I would imagine Valve games money for simply distributing the game online and promoting it on Steam...

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      November 21, 2005 5:21 PM

      Ragdoll kung fu has nothing to do with the source engine, same story with Darwinia. It's just being used as a means of distribution..

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