Activision and Valve today announced that they've hammered out an agreement to get Valve's Steamworks suite of tools onto the PC version of Infinity Ward's Modern Warfare 2.

"All PC versions of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 will be powered by Steamworks, providing gamers with auto-updating, anti-cheat technology, Steam Achievements, and the recently introduced Steam Cloud," reads the release.

Modern Warfare 2 PC will come loaded with 50 Steam achievements. As with other Steamworks titles, the game will also be accessible from any computer, with Steam Cloud providing persistent settings.

"Steam is the hands down leader in offering a community focused experience on PC and the inclusion of Steamworks has allowed us to deliver the most feature-rich PC version to ever come from Infinity Ward, which at the end of the day will mean the most to our fans," said Infinity Ward's Robert Bowling.

In a press release celebrating its free development and publishing toolset, Half-Life creator and Steam operator Valve declared that "Steamworks makes DRM obsolete."

The studio trumpeted recent additions to the toolset, including "Custom Executable Generation (CEG) technology" and support for in-game downloadable content.

"[CEG] compliments the already existing anti-piracy solution offered in Steamworks," explained Valve. "A customer friendly approach to anti-piracy, CEG makes unique copies of games for each user allowing them to access the application on multiple machines without install limits and without having to install root kits."

"As we roll out these features, we continue to look for new ways make PC games easier to create and better for customers to experiences," said Valve co-founder Gabe Newell.

The Steamworks toolset allows PC developers to integrate the various aspects of Valve's Steam platform into their games, including achievements, Steam community support, automatic updating, shared settings across multiple computers, and more.

Tripwire's tactical FPS Red Orchestra will soon see the addition of Steam achievements and a new free map, according to the developer.

The map, "Fallen Heroes," is set in the Russian Red Square. Planned for inclusion in the initial release, Fallen Heroes was cut and forgotten for years. Tripwire recently passed the map to community mapper Kevin "Dr. Guppy" Butt, who completed it for the free release.

For a look at the Red Orchestra Steam achievements, click on through:... Read more

Sega has announced that like so many games these days, Creative Assembly's Empire: Total War (PC) will receive a special edition in addition to its regular release.

Titled the Special Forces Edition, the premium package will come with exclusive "elite" units as well as a detailed print of the Campaign Map. No pricing or additional details were announced. Sega did announce that the game will use Valve's Steamworks publishing and development suite, allowing for auto updates, downloadable content, friendlist support and achievements.

Additionally Steamworks will provide server browsing and match-making functionality for the game's multiplayer component. Empire: Total War will also authenticate through Steam the very first time it is run.

People who preorder Empire: Total War on Steam now will immediately be able to download a free copy of Rome: Total War Gold.

Empire: Total War will be released February 3.

Independent developer Valve today announced the release of its Steamworks software development kit, a set of free tools that will allow PC game developers to add a number of supporting services to their products.

The list of features includes product key authentication, copy protection, auto-updating, social networking, matchmaking, and anti-cheat technology.

Those interested in the nitty-gritty details can check out the Steamworks partner site, which has now been updated with additional documentation.

Valve Software today announced Steamworks, a suite of tools freely available for any developers to use with retail or online PC releases.

The tools include real-time sales, gameplay, and product activation statistics, an encryption system, territory control, auto updating, voice chat, multiplayer matchmaking, social networking services such as leaderboards, and other development tools. The full list of features can be found on Shacknews.

Many of the features are already integrated into the Steam Community platform. The tool set is similar to what Microsoft offers to developers--for a fee--in both Windows Live and Xbox Live.

"Developers and publishers are spending more and more time and money cobbling together all the tools and backend systems needed to build and launch a successful title in today's market," said Valve president Gabe Newell. "Steamworks puts all those tools and systems together in one free package, liberating publishers and developers to concentrate on the game instead of the plumbing."