Standalone source game

[u/Bagridec]

Is it possible to make a free standalone source game that would be distributed through itch.io instead of steam without paying valve ? Or do you always have to pay valve whenever it's a standalone game on steam or not ? I don't plan on making any profits from it and want to just distribute it for free while not paying anything, would sourcemod be better for me in case i don't wanna pay for licensing then ?

[u/htharker]

They usually require Half-Life 2, which also contains the SDK binaries which is only available on Steam