Dante Buckley has had a whirlwind of a year. In August, the 20 year old released one of the Vive’s most beloved shooters, Onward. Next month, he’ll move into the offices of Valve itself.
Buckley isn’t straight up joining the SteamVR maker, but instead moving into its offices in Bellevue, Washington to continue work on his game during January. Writing in an update on Onward‘s Steam page, the developer revealed that Valve had invited him to come work in the offices for the month as he continued to improve the game looking ahead to 2017.
Buckley said that “this means that many more awesome developments are coming in Onward‘s future,” though he didn’t get into specifics today. He did, however, say that a new update for the game will be out soon, which should introduce some bug fixes.
It’s a massive announcement for Buckley, who has been a one-man development team behind Onward. The developer dropped out of college when he was just 18 to work on the game, which became a surprise hit. Onward is a multiplayer first-person shooter that’s more ARMA than Counter-Strike, with realistic gameplay. The game is currently in Early Access, though Buckley aims to release the full version at some point in 2017.
We spoke to Buckley earlier this year about his experience making Onward.
He isn’t the first developer to spend time working internally at Valve; Budget Cuts developer Neat Corporation also spent a month working there this year. These short stays will no doubt be of huge benefit to indie studios, giving them experience and resources from the company not only behind the HTC Vive but also legendary games like Half-Life and Portal too.
If you want to send some congratulations Buckley’s way then Onward is currently discounted in Steam’s Winter Sale as it nears its end. If you’ve already got it, then why not recommend it to a friend? We certainly would.
