Mods provide an excellent way of squeezing more life out of your PC games, and there’s even a few that become so popular that they eventually get picked up by a publisher and become a whole new game. One of the most modifiable engines out there right now is the Source Engine - which is the engine that games such as Half-Life 2 and Team Fortress 2 run on - and the creators of the engine, Valve, have always been extremely appreciative of the work the mod community does (such as hiring the people who make the mods). This appreciation has become evermore apparent as Valve has released five of the most popular Source mods for download on their digital distribution platform Steam.

The five mods you can now automatically install on Steam (you have to own a Source game, of course) are Age of Chivalry, D.I.P.R.I.P., Insurgency (above), Synergy and Zombie Panic. Each mod deserves a try (Insurgency is excellent) and, hey, they’re free so why not? Obviously you’ve always been able to download and install these mods but now the process is far easier. Each mod will automatically update like the rest of your games on the ‘My Games’ list, plus they’ll also have access to Steamworks which provides stat tracking amongst other things.

You can expect more mods to come but, for now, log on to Steam to try the first five out.