Valve holds responsibility for the development and operation of two of the world's biggest esports titles. Millions of players around the world enjoyed all Dota 2, CS: GO, Half-Life, and Portal for many years. The legendary game company garnered multiple accolades but they have made few games except their 2019 Half-Life spin-off. There was little hope of Valve ever returning to making beloved games but its co-founder Gabe “Gaben” Newell announced excellent news for longtime fans.
Worth the wait
Gaben, in an interview with New Zealand's 1 News, explicitly stated that Valve has multiple games in development.
“We definitely have games in development that we're going to be announcing — it's fun to ship games.”
This is welcome news for Valve fans clamoring and waiting for a new title from the legendary game developer. Dota 2 and CS: GO remain at the top of competitive gaming but there's nothing quite like a brand new game experience. Valve has a track record of amazing platformer/shooter games that rely heavily on amazing mechanics. Naturally, the successes of its past games have developed a sort of inflated expectation from players. Gaben further explained that the development and release of 2020's Half-Life: Alyx inspired the Valve team to make more games.
“(Half-Life: )Alyx was great — to be back doing single-player games, that created a lot of momentum inside of the company to do more of that.”
It's wise to proceed with cautious optimism for potential future game announcements from Valve. There's no telling at this point in time if the unannounced games will continue beloved franchises or be entirely new IPs. Valve reportedly canceled multiple games across the years including several builds of Half-Life 3. It might not be enough to stave off the Gaben and Half-Life 3 memes but the announcement of new games will be a fresh new phase for Valve.
Moving forward
Gaben's statement points toward the reinvigoration of the makers at Valve to return to their single-player game roots. Esports will continue to grow as a global trend spanning across multiple countries and players but single-player games will always have their own audience. Players are always ready and willing to embrace well-crafted games even those that don't evolve into multi-million dollar competitive titles.
Certainly, in this time of a global pandemic, there is a greater demand for games that people can play at their leisure at home. Hopefully, we hear soon from Valve regarding the future games they plan to amaze us is. Given how fans and critics almost unilaterally loved Half-Life: Alyx we can all expect good things from Valve in the near future, even if that good thing isn't Half-Life 3.
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