this post was submitted on 27 Dec 2023
635 points (95.2% liked)
Games
31411 readers
1644 users here now
Welcome to the largest gaming community on Lemmy! Discussion for all kinds of games. Video games, tabletop games, card games etc.
Weekly Threads:
Rules:
-
Submissions have to be related to games
-
No bigotry or harassment, be civil
-
No excessive self-promotion
-
Stay on-topic; no memes, funny videos, giveaways, reposts, or low-effort posts
-
Mark Spoilers and NSFW
-
No linking to piracy
More information about the community rules can be found here.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
All I can find about their next game is called "In the Valley of Gods" which looks like it is still being developed. What game was cancelled? Also how is that the same as buying an IP then running it into the ground so their main IP can get a mildly popular game mode that will likely be forgotten about in a couple months? I'm already bored of rocket racing and I only installed it because a friend kept begging me to play fortnite zero build which I also don't enjoy.
It is on indefinite hold. It is still being "developed" in the same way Valve won't confirm or deny the existence or cancelation of Half-Life 2 Episode 3/Half Life 3, but articles I've read previously essentially confirm that no one has been working on it for years.
I'll happily eat my words if the game does come out because Firewatch was a beautiful game that left me wanting more, but Valve's internal development structure doesn't really encourage passion projects.
Could you elaborate?
Not the person you're replying to, but from what I've read before Valve is kind of notorious for this because they do encourage people to work on what they want. The problem with this is that it also means it's hard to get support for your project. For example, in order to get Half-Life: Alyx pushed out, they had to suspend that policy of working only on things that make them happy.
Here's a quote from the wiki article about HL: Alyx's development:
Here's some additional info on how they work from an interview:
Putting a product out requires 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration. The reason so many people make hour long video essays is that they can regurgitate their inspiration directly to a camera while doing little substantive work.
Valve likely has other “1% inspiration” tasks people often choose over the “boring” parts of game development - the bits that don’t excite anyone, and would only be done with the direct promise of a paycheck. Who wants to write up a design document, and go through 8 drafts for feedback?
I think the quote from Jane is pretty telling. Some people at Valve only help out when a project starts "getting pretty cool." It's probably the cause of a lot of inertia in game development over there. Also, just an interesting detail, Jane Ng is from Campo Santo and she stopped working on In the Valley of Gods to work on HL: Alyx.