In The Valley of Gods put on hold

Seems folks were worried for a reason, when Campo Santo people removed any mentions of ”In The Valley of Gods” from their social media accounts around the reveal of Half-Life: Alyx.

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2019-12-03-firewatch-devs-egyptian-adventure-in-the-valley-of-gods-officially-on-hold-at-valve

Definitely bummed over this, especially if it’ll stay forever on that hold. I would’ve gladly played a follow-up from them after Firewatch.

Super disappointing to hear, and the way he phrased how it could come back makes it sound like there's no guarantee that it would be the original team. It already sucked having the Important if True podcast end, now we don't even get a follow up from one of the strongest debuts in recent memory.

On a side not, I'm finally watching Twin Peaks and listening to the Twin Peaks pod Chris Remo and Jake Rodkin of Campo Santo did and it is a lot of fun. I'm a big fan of both but especially Jake's humor and insight.

It's a shame they couldn't do both. But reading the tenor of the twitter thread (of course it was fucking twitter) it seems fairly clear what abyss this fell into.

Personally, I was much more interested in In the Valley of the Gods than Half-Life: Alyx.

It's a real shame. Presumably "put on hold" means "cancelled", but hopefully it doesn't, and that production could resume after Half-Life releases.

The "game gene pool" at Valve is getting a little bit too small. It feels like they haven't had a new idea since Portal: everything they release comes from decades old franchises at this point (Half-Life, Dota, Counter-Strike). They need some fresh game blood, and In the Valley of Gods would have been perfect for that.

@sloppydetective: Holy shit, same on all fronts. Also, so glad you are enjoying the Twin Peaks podcast. I love that show and the Return and the podcast only increased my love of both. It is a delight.

Important If True was the best non GB podcast that I regularly listened to. I miss it so much.

But yeah, more on topic this is a huge bummer and it really makes me sad that literally all of my fears about Campo Santo when they were picked up by Valve feel true now. Not to say HL Alyx won't be amazing, it might be, but still, I was super excited for In the Valley of Gods. The Duncan Fife tweet thread particularly depressed me.

speaking from my perspective (and as a general fan of idle thumbs and campo santo)- i'm not terribly torn up about this. while i'll always mourn the shelving of a new IP from creators i respect- that intial trailer was pretty underwhelming for me.

granted- i've never been particularly interested in egyptology, and i actually found firewatch pretty middle-of-the-road (great visual style with nice details but a ho-hum story; i didn't buy into the character relationships).

also- to hear the campo santo people tell it, it sounds as though they're genuinely excited to be working at valve on half-life and there might not have been the same energy with In the Valley.

there's a good recent chris remo interview that i'll post here once i find the link. it gave me some context that makes me think they're doing right by themselves, which is all i want from creators (they'll do their best work when they chase the thing that excites them).

@mellotronrules: I don't really use Twitter so it's tough to follow some of the Dev insights regarding this but are there any Campo Santo devs who are upset they are working on a valve project instead of their own? From the sparse bits I've read it sounds like they were proactive in joining the Half Life project.

@merxworx01: yes that's exactly my impression too (sorry if i was unclear). it's my understanding that momentum behind In the Valley dissolved when they got to Valve and started chasing their passions/interests.

ps- here's the chris remo interview i mentioned in my comment above.

(sorry if it's not clickable, on mobile)

https://youtu.be/9AhiG8Ez4Xc

@mellotronrules: That's understandable, I guess. I imagine for many game developers, getting the offer to work on the next Half-Life game would be hard to resist.

@mellotronrules: thanks! Regarding In the Valley of the Gods I don't think we we've seen the last of the game. It's development might be deferred but depending on how far they are in its development they may just pick up where they left off or they may change some core elements of the game based on new insight whilst working on HL.

All that said it's still weird hearing that some of them working on Dota Underlords.

Might as well just consider it cancelled at this point.

Yeah this game ain't coming out