HL2 Aftermath teaser, CS details

Valve has released a teaser shot of Half-Life 2: Aftermath, the forthcoming expansion to last year's top-rated PC first-person shooter, and says it intends to release it "later this summer". You can find the shot here.

Aftermath was unveiled earlier this month in the pages of PC Gamer UK (more details here) and will focus on what happens in City 17 after the conclusion of Half-Life 2, with a bigger role for HL2's female lead Alyx.

Valve's latest missive describes Aftermath as "the continuation of Gordon Freeman's adventures," dampening speculation that we'd get to play as somebody else.

Valve recently indicated that Aftermath will be released exclusively via content download service Steam, which saw Half-Life 2 fall into thousands of gamers' digi-laps more or less as soon as it came out last November.

However, in the very near future, Steam will also be used to distribute "the next big Counter-Strike release" featuring two new maps for CS: Source.

The first of these, de_port, is a new map set in and around a resupply port for outgoing ships, and has been "designed for a balanced layout employing a mix of long sightlines with cover and close quarters fighting environments". Valve previously released a sketch of the de_port's layout, which you can find here.

The other map will be a "completely redone" de_inferno, a favourite of old CS. Screenshots of both maps should be released "in the next week or two".