When players think of successful video game companies, names like Nintendo and Epic Games come to mind. But no one can discount Valve, the owner of Steam and, arguably, one of the most successful video game companies today. Withthis year’s Steam Summer Sale wrapping up, it’s important to catalog everything in Valve’s pedigree.
Even before Steam,Valvehad created several successful games.Half-Lifewas and is one of the most important titles in video game history, and bothTeam Fortress 2andCS:GOare still played today. For a long time after Steam, Valve’s games very much fell by the wayside. Until the introduction of the Index andHalf-Life: Alyx, the glory days of Valve’s game production seemed to be fading in the rearview mirror withPortal 2.
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Contrary to this image, it seems Valve has been trying to get a new game out for some time now. It was recently announced that adocumentary would show the inner workings of Valve, including projects it was working on up to the release ofHalf-Life: Alyxand the Index. One of these was A.R.T.I, which would have been a voxel-based game similar toMinecraft, focusing on destruction and construction. The writer ofHalf-Life 2andPortalwas on board as a character at one point. The game was moved to VR, but production was halted to focus onAlyx.
A.R.T.I’s story is not unique among the projects Valve was working on. Also shelved forAlyx’s production was SimTrek, a VR game developed by theKerbal Space Programteam.Shooterwas the name for another project, an FPS created entirely fromHalf-Life 2assets. It was designed to be part of The Lab, but was not considered ready for the launch.
Since theIndex is still getting new featuresandShooterhasn’t been shelved officially, there’s a real chance it may come back. There’s also a chance forBorealis, anotherHalf-Lifeuniverse game that would take place on a time-traveling ship, but how much of a chance is unknown.
It seems like the Index would have been theHalf-Lifeconsole, at least at first, had all of these projects come to fruition. Considering the easily modifiable nature of the game, that’s not really a bad thing. In fact,one fan has already created a PT mod forAlyx, showing real mod potential for the platform. This is good news, especially considering Valve’s first attempt at a VR platform, internally named Vader, was far too expensive.
How many of these projects, if any, will be revived is uncertain, but it does seem certain all Valve’s current properties have futures.Team Fortress 2may not be the online juggernaut it once was,but it’s still getting mod content. The Index will have new headline games in the future, and there’s a good chance several will be from Valve itself. Here’s hoping theHalf-Lifeuniverse, and others, expand a little more.
