It’s been about two years now since Campo Santo announced their next game, In the Valley of Gods. The game was their follow up after the interesting Firewatch narrative adventure game. Since then we haven’t heard much, and the company was acquired by Valve in that time period. Since then, Half-Life: Alyx was announced. We’ve known that Campo Santo was involved in some capacity, though it wasn’t clear to what degree. Well, whatever it may be, it’s enough to put their own game on the back burner.
A statement was given to Polygon from Campo Santo Co-founder Jake Rodkin where he confirmed that the game was now “on hold.” He doesn’t give any kind of time frame for when to expect the game to be back in development, but does confirm that the studio was assisting with Half-Life: Alyx, as well as other areas within Valve, which contributed to the game’s status.
“To fans looking forward to In the Valley of Gods, it’s probably clear that the optimistic “2019” at the end of the announcement trailer isn’t going to be accurate. In the end, Valve Time makes fools of us all. But yes, developers from the former Campo Santo team have joined other projects at Valve, including Half-Life: Alyx. As you can imagine, our experience in the first-person adventure genre is pretty relevant. You hear a lot about how at Valve you can work on what you want. It turns out that’s true, and there’s a lot of work available. As we integrated ourselves into Valve it became clear there was a lot of valuable work to be done on Half-Life: Alyx. Some of us starting lending a hand, and have since become full-time on the project as it approaches launch. Similarly, some ex-Campos are working on Dota Underlords, some are on Steam, and so on. So to answer your question as of today, In the Valley of Gods development is on hold—but it certainly feels like a project people can and may return to. And when that happens, we’ll find an exciting way to let fans know.”
You can’t help but wonder if we’ll ever see In the Valley of Gods now. It’s hard to say, but hopefully we will once Half-Life: Alyx launches in March of 2020 since Firewatch was a fun title with a lot of potential. Only time will tell.