Future of promising indie In the Valley of Gods looks uncertain
Valve has put the project on hold.
Valley of the Gods had the kind of trailer announcement that got everyone talking, even though the game was still two years from official release when showcased at the 2017 Video Game Awards. The intriguing and refreshing Egyptian setting, the beautiful spectacle of a desert-covered environment and the really exciting casting of a POC protagonist, left many eagerly awaiting any news on the title’s release. It helped a fair bit that the game was being developed by the Campo Santo team too, who previously made Firewatch.
A snag in the story first appeared in 2018, one year later, when Valve acquired the studio Campo Santo. With this news, fans were immediately wary. It’s not normally a fantastic sign when small, creative studios are acquired by monolithic companies, and many feared that this move would put the production of In the Valley of the Gods at risk. In the original blog post written by Camp Santo they assured fans with the message: “Yes, we’re still making “In the Valley of Gods” (as a Valve game!); yes, we’ll still support Firewatch; and yes, we’ll still produce The Quarterly Review and our regular blog content”.
The message alleviated some fans fears, but when the developers began dropping mention of Valley of the Gods from their twitter bios, we again thought something might be up. Unfortunately, turns out we were correct. Reported just today via Eurogamer, it seems that Valve has put this project on hold. Apparently no dev can be spared at Valve right now as the company as a whole works on Half-Life: Alyx, which will be coming to PC VR next year.
In a statement to Polygon, Jake Rodkin confirmed this, stating: “As we integrated ourselves into Valve it became clear there was a lot of valuable work to be done on Half-Life: Alyx. Some of us starting lending a hand, and have since become full-time on the project as it approaches launch. Similarly, some ex-Campos are working on Dota Underlords, some are on Steam, and so on. So to answer your question as of today, In the Valley of Gods development is on hold—but it certainly feels like a project people can and may return to.”
It’s not the news we were hoping for, but its the news we have for now. To keep an eye on In the Valley of Gods, you can check out its Steam page, where it’s released date is now TBC.