We're in for a long wait to play In The Valley of Gods, as it seems ValveTime has caught up with the Campo Santo (Firewatch) team that joined Valve back in 2018.
Around the time Half-Life: Alyx was being rumoured and then announced, it was noticed that the people who were working on In The Valley of Gods had their Twitter bios changed to remove any mention of it. We know why now though, as Polygon got a statement from Campo Santo co-founder Jake Rodkin where they note it's now "on hold".
They mention that some of them ended up working full-time on Half-Life: Alyx, others Dota Underlords, Steam itself and so on. Here's their full statement:
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.
The Steam page for In The Valley of Gods can be found here, with a release date that's now "TBD"
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Quoteit certainly feels like a project people can and may return to
Written like that, it doesn't inspire much hope. I was kinda looking forward to this, but I suspected it was dead a while back.
Quoting: poke86That statement makes it sound like they got bored of their own game...
I think it sounds more like excitement over working on a Half Life project.
On the other there's Valve which although they do a stellar job at maintining and keeping alive their multiplayer catalogue can't seem to be able to shoot out a solo game in timely fashion ...
I'd like to blame it on Valve choice of "horizontal leadership" but the thing is ... others do it and manage to pump out babies after babies like a machine gun hooked to a swiss clock ...
Campo Santo maybe just maybe being your own thing on the side was for the better ...
I'm just sayin'
Quoting: TheSyldatCampo Santo maybe just maybe being your own thing on the side was for the better ...You're assuming "pumping out" games is the end goal for them. Maybe they have more fun and/or make a more reliable paycheck doing whatever they do at Valve. We might be happier if they worked on their own games instead, but they don't exactly owe us anything.
I'm just sayin'
Quoting: tuubiYou're assuming "pumping out" games is the end goal for them. Maybe they have more fun and/or make a more reliable paycheck doing whatever they do at Valve. We might be happier if they worked on their own games instead, but they don't exactly owe us anything.Where did I say that they were none of their employees that were happy about that change of pace ?
Also it's kind of a useless precision to ask of me especially when the status report did say that some were having a blast working on the tech side of things rather than game development proper.
Sooo you know my comment was addressed to those that still want to develop games more than push the tech enveloppe.
There you have your precious nugget of precision ....
Happy ?
Last edited by TheSyldat on 5 December 2019 at 11:26 am UTC
Comandante Ñoñardo Dec 5, 2019
In this particular case, GabeN is having a very EA attitude.
Quoting: TheSyldatWhat's with the attitude?Quoting: tuubiYou're assuming "pumping out" games is the end goal for them. Maybe they have more fun and/or make a more reliable paycheck doing whatever they do at Valve. We might be happier if they worked on their own games instead, but they don't exactly owe us anything.Where did I say that they were none of their employees that were happy about that change of pace ?
Also it's kind of a useless precision to ask of me especially when the status report did say that some were having a blast working on the tech side of things rather than game development proper.
Sooo you know my comment was addressed to those that still want to develop games more than push the tech enveloppe.
There you have your precious nugget of precision ....
Happy ?
Their communication seems to indicate that they all jumped into projects at Valve that they personally found interesting. Game development projects for the most part, mind you. Is there any reason to try to read between the lines and assume some of them would rather be working on their own game?
Quoting: Comandante ÑoñardoIn this particular case, GabeN is having a very EA attitude.I wouldn't go there personnaly.
And if indeed there are some people that moved to contributing to work on steam as a platform and on it's backend etc it's almost certainly because it's a type of work they do enjoy doing.
It's just that blaming the delay of In The Valley Of Gods on "Valve Time" so on it's horizontal leadership (because at the end of the day that's what people mean when they talk about "Valve Time" ) is bit of a bullshit excuse for me .
Once again Motion Twin works that way , SimFarm works that way the studios that makes Eurotruck simulator works that way and they pump out baby after baby just fine.
They lost focus, I'm glad they got to work on all kinds of exciting shit, but don't "PR Bullshit" my ass. Straight up admit that you had a massive case of squirrel syndrome because of all the exciting shit you were exposed to .
That's what I take issue with in this report .
Last edited by TheSyldat on 5 December 2019 at 3:55 pm UTC
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