This week’s release of Geoff Keighley’s Half-Life Alyx – Final Hours revealed some fascinating glimpses at the recent history of Valve, including canceled Half-Life VR games and shelved VR headsets. But there’s also just a few teases of what might be to come in the company’s future.
First off, the app makes it clear that not all of Valve is entirely sure on what’s next just yet. Keighley claims that, privately, ‘most of the team’ wants to make Half-Life 3 but for traditional PCs and consoles instead of VR. The company’s Phil Co at one point teases that, after Alyx, returning to the Half-Life universe isn’t as intimidating, saying “We’re not afraid of Half-Life no more.”
Tejeev Kohli, meanwhile, adds “Going from [Alyx] to a new big thing, which will be even bigger, is pretty exciting.”
But the app also hints that more VR games could well be on the table for Valve. It also teases that a ‘small team’ has been working on a ‘top-secret’ project since early 2018. Again, no word on if it could be a VR title.
Turning to the hardware, Keighley notes that the team is “already working on what’s next”, and that Valve’s Jeremy Selan himself noted the Index was already “two years old technology” at this point. Valve boss Gabe Newell made a lot of interesting remarks about the potential for new hardware from Valve ahead of the release of Alyx and, in our own interview with the team, Greg Coomer suggested the game’s ending might have some interesting implications on the hardware side.
So, after a welcome six-month break in which we actually knew what Valve was doing, we’re back to our regularly scheduled mystery and speculation. Obviously we have our fingers crossed that Valve has more VR games (and hardware) on the way, but we probably won’t be finding out anytime soon.
