MCV/DEVELOP News, events, research and jobs from the games industry
Gabe Newell took some time to conduct an AMA yesterday, confirming there’s a new game set in the shared Half Life/Portal universe currently in development and that Valve is also working on a fully-fledged” single player game – we don’t know if these are two different projects or the same one, though.
Newell was asked if there was any chance of a new IP that takes place in the Half Life/Portal universe”, to which he simply answered: Yep.”
In a follow up question, another user asked: Wasn’t there a movie (or a set of 2 movies) coming in that universe by Valve and JJ Abrams?” Being, again, a man of few words, Newell just replied: Yep. They’re coming.”
Valve and JJ Abrams partnership was announced as far back as 2013, with regular hints from both sides saying it was still happening – but it hasn’t brought anything concrete so far.
Another inevitable question was of course Half Life 3. The question was asked amongst a compiled list of questions from different users: What is the status of Half Life 3/Half Life 2 Episode 3? Is Valve still working on any fully-fledged single player games? An unidentified anonymous source at Valve has said that Half Life 3 has been cancelled. Is that source legitimate?”
Newell answered cryptically: The number 3 must not be said. Yes. I personally believe all unidentified anonymous sources on the Internet.”
Valve’s president also confirmed other projects for the company, focused on hardware and virtual reality:
The big thing right now is broadening the range of options we have in creating experiences. We think investing in hardware will give us those options. The knuckles controller is being designed at the same time as we’re designing our own VR games.
Much more narrowly, some of us are thinking about some of the AI work that is being hyped right now. Simplistically we have lots of data and compute capability that looks like the kinds of areas where machine learning should work well.
Personally I’m looking at research in brain-computer interfaces.”
