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It is on indefinite hold. It is still being “developed” in the same way Valve won’t confirm or deny the existence or cancelation of Half-Life 2 Episode 3/Half Life 3, but articles I’ve read previously essentially confirm that no one has been working on it for years.

I’ll happily eat my words if the game does come out because Firewatch was a beautiful game that left me wanting more, but Valve’s internal development structure doesn’t really encourage passion projects.

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CosmicCleric@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

but Valve’s internal development structure doesn’t really encourage passion projects.

Could you elaborate?

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- cottonmon@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Not the person you’re replying to, but from what I’ve read before Valve is kind of notorious for this because they do encourage people to work on what they want. The problem with this is that it also means it’s hard to get support for your project. For example, in order to get Half-Life: Alyx pushed out, they had to suspend that policy of working only on things that make them happy.
  
  Here’s a quote from the wiki article about HL: Alyx’s development:
  
  Valve abandoned episodic development and made several failed attempts to develop further Half-Life projects. Walker blamed the lack of progress on Valve’s flat management structure, whereby employees decide what to work on themselves. He said the team eventually decided they would be happier if they worked together on a large project, even if it was not their preferred choice.
  
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  - Katana314@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Putting a product out requires 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration. The reason so many people make hour long video essays is that they can regurgitate their inspiration directly to a camera while doing little substantive work.
    
    Valve likely has other “1% inspiration” tasks people often choose over the “boring” parts of game development - the bits that don’t excite anyone, and would only be done with the direct promise of a paycheck. Who wants to write up a design document, and go through 8 drafts for feedback?
    
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    cottonmon@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I think the quote from Jane is pretty telling. Some people at Valve only help out when a project starts “getting pretty cool.” It’s probably the cause of a lot of inertia in game development over there. Also, just an interesting detail, Jane Ng is from Campo Santo and she stopped working on In the Valley of Gods to work on HL: Alyx.
    
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