With the Steam Deck upcoming, what do we think the chances are that Valve will reveal a new game to go along side it?
One thing that Valve didn't quite get right for Steam Machines was a new game (and a lack of games overall). It's not quite the same with the Valve Index, since it was a very different form of gaming and so they did put out Half-Life: Alyx to showcase what a big game would really be like with it (although it came later). So what about the Steam Deck?
Half-Life: Alyx has reinvigorated Valve with game development, and Valve did confirm previously that they had multiple games in development - the question is will we see an announcement this year? There's not all that long until the Steam Deck releases at the end of this year but like with the Valve Index it could come some months after. Valve have multiple teams doing different things too, so it's not like all the work going into the Steam Deck would take away from people involved with game development. The point is, Valve are once again a games company, not just a service company with the Steam store.
After playing through and completing Half-Life: Alyx myself live on our Twitch Channel, We're very keen to see what other games Valve can come up with, it proved they've still "got it" (unlike Artifact, which they gave up on). If they do, what shape would it take? What series would it be part of it, or would we see something entirely new?
This time around, it's not like they actually need to produce a new game. The Steam Deck hardware should speak for itself on what it's capable of based on what's been shown, along with Steam Play Proton enabling thousands of Windows-only games from Steam's back catalogue to run on SteamOS 3 (and the ~8,000 native Linux titles) they've definitely solved one of the biggest hurdles in doing new hardware but still - we can't help but want a new Valve game.
So there might be no actual need to make one but they might be a bit silly not to. At this point, it seems like it's already something of success. Everyone is talking about it and most people seem very excited by it both inside and outside of Linux circles. Reservations took down the Steam store, and even when it came back up there was so much traffic that their payment system for it went down and orders took a long time - so we know there's genuine interest. Should Valve capitalize on that? Absolutely.
What do we actually want from a new Valve game though? Left 4 Dead 3? Half-Life 3? Portal 3? A new Counter-Strike? Or something entirely different perhaps? They have a number of good titles there that are ripe for picking up once again and bringing them in an updated form to the desktop and the Steam Deck.
I think they would be a bit silly to do Left 4 Dead 3 right now, considering how Back 4 Blood is releasing in October with it being widely reported as a spiritual successor and Turtle Rock Studios are the original developer of Left 4 Dead. Half-Life: Alyx definitely put that series back into the spotlight, and with the incredible ending there's a lot they could do with it although it might be weird to carry that from VR into traditional gaming. Portal also has Portal Reloaded and Portal Stories: Mel for people who want more of that. Difficult to say what they would / should do. Doesn't stop us wanting more from Valve though.
What do you think: will Valve announce a new game late this year or early next year? Or perhaps it's still far away?
Quoting: Liam DaweQuoting: TeodosioI would like to see a new game from Valve, released on GNU/Linux only.Exclusives are bad.
yes they are, but for once it would be "fun" to hear the Windows crowd huff and puff over the evils of "exclusivity". At which point we can just tell them how easy they could just dual boot :)
Quoting: Liam DaweQuoting: TeodosioI would like to see a new game from Valve, released on GNU/Linux only.Exclusives are bad.
If Valve is serious about Linux, I'd still propose charging like 5 % less Valve fee if the published game features a Linux build.
they should make their next game... linux exclusive.
otherwise people will keep seeing windows as capable of doing everything linux does, while they dont see linux as capable of doing everything windows do.
it need to be at least temporary exclusive.
Portal?
Quoting: Liam DaweQuoting: TeodosioI would like to see a new game from Valve, released on GNU/Linux only.Exclusives are bad.
say that to microsoft with their directX stuff.
there is no such thing as an world without exclusives, there is either what we have on consoles where sony, microsoft and nintendo make their own exclusives and get 1/3 of the market each, or what we have on pc where an single player get 90% of the marketshare and the others strugle to grow because they only have an subset of windows games/softwares.
its either "every one make they own exclusives" or "everything become windows exclusive" and we strugle to build tools like proton.
i would love to see valve make something exclusive and ask gamers to direct their anger toward sony/nintendo/microsoft for locking mac/linux users out of their content for so long, be mad at then, not us, if they stop doing it, we will stop.
it has been proven again and again that you cant grow without at least temporary exclusives.
Last edited by elmapul on 22 July 2021 at 12:48 pm UTC
So, having a couple of games that are optimized for the Deck, maybe from Valve, maybe from partners would be a smart move.
Quoting: TeodosioI would like to see a new game from Valve, released on GNU/Linux only.Better solution is Linux nativ exlusive, but with WSL as linux compatibility layer on windows :-)
QuoteI think they would be a bit silly to do Left 4 Dead 3 right now, considering how Back 4 Blood is releasing in October with it being widely reported as a spiritual successor and Turtle Rock Studios are the original developer of Left 4 Dead.
While I really would like to Back for Blood to be successful (I even question them about Linux support years ago, without answer) I have a feel that it will Evolve into another failure from Turtle Rock, judging by the way they are managing the game lately.
Sometimes I also think that we don't have anything new of Left 4 Dead franchise due to some conflicts between Valve and Turtle Rock, like how people responsible for the last stand update doesn't have any access to the main game code, or how Valve wants you to forget that the first game exist (this one may be due to technical reasons)
Back on topic, I think they'll first update their existing relevant games to be more friendly to Steam Deck, then pushing some new one aiming to it.
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