Valve Announce Alien Swarm

…And it’s coming out Monday. For free. If there has ever been a time to be excited, it is now!

For those of you not quite in the know, know this: Alien Swarm was a total conversion mod of Unreal Tournament 2004, developed by Black Cat Games, which turned UT2004 into a top down, 4 player cooperative shooter. The team was hired by Valve, and have now built the game in the Source engine, with some beefed up graphics and gameplay, thanks in no small part to being, y’know, employed by Valve.

The game’s free, too (I imagine you might have to own a Source engine game to download it, but you know what? If you haven’t played Half Life 2, and have Steam, WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH YOUR LIFE?). Did I mention that? A free game. I love free games. They’re some of my favorite things.

Surprise edit: while doing the rounds for things to post about, I found RPS’ post on this subject, which included a very new games journalism piece on the original Alien Swarm. Which is…not really a preview, but a “this is how we played it once” kind of thing. In case you’re curious.

A couple more pictures after the jump. Jump