Gabe Newell: Valve is developing the games we're going to announce

 

Valve boss Gabe Newell has been in New Zealand for most of the year after deciding to extend his ten-day vacation due to the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020. The longer he stayed in this country, the more he liked it: in October 2020, he was thinking about the possibility of transferring developers to New Zealand.

In a new interview with 1 News, Newell reiterated that some Valve employees are "showing great interest" in the move, although he added that there is no definitive plan for the move yet.

Something else that could be carried over to New Zealand, Newell says, are major esports tournaments including The International and CS: GO Majors. Last year's International and Rio Major were postponed due to the pandemic, and no dates have been set yet, as it is still impossible to host events like this in most of the world. But it is a “real possibility” that something like this could be done in New Zealand, where the pandemic is under control.

"As long as Covid continues to mutate, it certainly increases the likelihood that our events will take place here."

Newell also touched on the topic of Half-Life 3 (or more precisely, the topic of why he refuses to discuss the topic of Half-Life 3) and "Citadel", the codename for something that may (or may not) be Valve's new major game. Although he declined to speak on the subject, Newell confirmed that Valve is developing new projects and, more importantly, a renewed enthusiasm for new game development, driven by the success of Half-Life: Alyx.

“We definitely have games in development that we're going to announce [...] Alyx was great. The company has a lot of incentives to make more single-player games. "

Newell also shared his opinion on Cyberpunk 2077, saying that he "had a lot of fun" playing the PC version and was "very familiar with the situation every game developer is in."

“All I know is that there are a lot of very satisfied players in the PC market who are most visible to us,” Newell says of Cyberpunk 2077. “The game has great aspects and it shows a tremendous amount of work. It's unfair to throw stones at any developer because just releasing something so complex and ambitious is pretty cool. I had a lot of fun with the PC version that I played. "