Valve’s involvement in development of actual games has left a lot of fans more than a little disappointed over the last decade or so. 2020 saw the company breaking a long streak of not having released any major new games with the incredible Half-Life: Alyx, but now, with the Steam Deck having got off to an excellent start and Valve already talking about future Steam Deck versions (on more than one occasion), one can’t help but wonder what that means for Valve’s continued development of games.
As per Valve’s Greg Coomer, there’s nothing to worry about on that front. Speaking in a recent interview with Famitsu, Coomer said that game development is still “very important” to the company. According to him, there are “a lot of games in development” at Valve, with a “high” percentage of people at the company involved in those projects.
“Valve has a lot of games in development,” Coomer said. “We will continue to release games.
“Game development is very important to Valve. I don’t know the exact numbers, but the percentage of employees involved in game development is high. A lot of people are involved.”
Interestingly, while Coomer didn’t provide details on what any of the in-development projects are, he did say that Valve still has more things planned for the Half-Life universe after Alyx.
“We love that world and want to continue exploring the Half-Life universe,” he said.
“The short answer is ‘yes’. Half-Life: Alyx is a sign that Valve has more to say about that world.”
This isn’t the first time we’ve heard this from Valve, of course. Shortly before its launch, the developer suggested that it would look to make more Half-Life games following Alyx, and said that the VR title represented Valve’s “return” to Half-Life, “not the end of it.”
Meanwhile, Coomer also said that Valve wants to make “a lot” of Portal entries in the future and that the series “deserves further exploration.” “I don’t have anything to announce right now, but I would like to make another Portal someday,” he added.
Interestingly, Valve’s Erik Wolpaw, who wrote Portal 1 and 2, recently urged the company to greenlight the next game in the series. Read more on that through here.
Interestingly, a previous leak claimed that Valve doesn’t have Half-Life 3 in development, and as part of its efforts to push the Steam Deck, is working on a co-op FPS/RTS hybrid called Citadel. Shortly afterward, however, Valve seemed to dismiss those claims, saying that any word on future projects would “come directly from [Valve].”
Where Half-Life: Alyx is concerned, reports have claimed that a PlayStation VR2 version of the first person shooter is also in development.