Wouldn’t it be nice if games stored your personal information online instead of forgetting it every time you switch PCs or format your hard drive? Valve seems to think so too, because Shacknews says the company plans to integrate just such a feature into its Steam online game distribution system.
Thanks to Steam Cloud, user save games and configuration files will be stored online “forever.” Steam Cloud will debut in Half-Life, Half-Life 2, and Counter-Strike; Valve’s upcoming zombie co-op shooter Left 4 Dead will have native support when it comes out later this year.
Shacknews says we can expect Steam Cloud to launch in the “near future,” and that the system will be “freely available to developers.” Valve has other new Steam features up its sleeve, too: the site mentions a system-requirement checker that will “analyze your hardware and compare it to multiple games, estimating your performance and recommending upgrades.”