Persuading Valve co-founder Gabe Newell to come to your school to give a talk is quite a bit deal. It gets even better when he seemingly drops a hint as to the company’s future plans, and those may just include more of the company’s games coming to console, perhaps even Steam itself.
In a Q&A session, Newell was asked “Will Steam be putting any games on consoles, or will it just say on PC?” Newell’s response was: “You will… uh… get a better idea of that by the end of this year.” The exchange was uploaded to Reddit and can be seen below.
The question was vague enough that it could imply there would be news about Steam itself coming to consoles, although this is quite an unlikely scenario. The most likely meaning of the comment is that Valve will announce a new title towards the end of 2021 that will be coming to consoles as well as PC. The company’s last title to come to consoles was Counter-Strike: Global Offensive on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in 2012, although there had also been Portal, Left 4 Dead and The Orange Box. Following a period of disinterest in console development, Valve acquired Campo Santo who was working on In The Valley of Gods for consoles. That project was later indefinitely delayed so the team could work on Half-Life: Alyx instead.
After the success of Half-Life: Alyx on VR headsets, Newell confirmed the studio has more projects in development, although PlayStation players remain hopeful the game will arrive on PSVR too. In an interview with 1 News, he said Alyx has “created a lot of momentum inside of the company” to create single-player games. While he has refused to be drawn on the possibility of a sequel for the Portal franchise or the fabled Half-Life 3, rumors are circulating of a project codenamed Citadel. The name has appeared in company reports since 2019 and many consider it a reference to the final location in Half-Life 2. It seems we’ll be learning more about this title fairly soon.
