What you need to know
- Firewatch developer Campo Santo was acquired by Valve in 2018.
- Its expected next game, In The Valley of Gods, has been put on hold by Valve.
- Campo Santo is focusing on Half-Life: Alyx and other projects for Valve instead.
Campo Santo's In The Valley of Gods has been put on hold while the former indie developer, now working under Valve, is focusing on other projects for the company. Notably, Valve recently announced Half-Life: Alyx, a dedicated VR game set in the Half-Life universe.
Judging from a statement by Camp Santo founder co-founder Jake Rodkin made to Polygon, Valve's infamous "work on what you want" culture is true, and much of the In The Valley of Gods team moved to other projects as they saw fit.
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.
In The Valley of Gods is a single-player adventure game set in Egypt that was supposed to release sometime this year, but the new release date is now unknown. Half-Life: Alyx is set to drop in March 2020.
