Skip to main content

With three new games in development, Valve is showing its commitment to virtual reality

Valve headquarters
Harry101UK
The studio behind Half-Life and Portal is currently working on three full-length VR games, Gabe Newell, Valve co-founder and president, disclosed in an interview with Eurogamer.

Newell stressed that the projects aren’t merely tech demos like 2016’s free VR title The Lab, a prototype experience that coincided with the launch of the HTC Vive, the headset that Valve partnered on with HTC. All we know so far is that the games will be built with Valve’s in-house engine Source 2 and Unity.

Recommended Videos

Newell further explained Valve’s steadfast commitment to the use of the emerging technology in games, emphasizing that he doesn’t think VR is a fad.

“It feels like we’ve been stuck with mouse and keyboard for a really long time, and that the opportunities to build much more interesting kinds of experiences for gamers were there — we just need to sort of expand what we can do. But it’s not about being in hardware, it’s about building better games. It’s about taking bigger leaps forward with the kinds of games that we can do,” he said.

Newell and his team won’t simply bring traditional console experiences into VR.  “VR is not going to be a success at all if people are just taking existing content and putting it into a VR space,” he said. He explained that when Valve first started working on VR, the team put Half-Life 2 and Team Fortress in VR, but found that it didn’t add any substance to those experiences.

Valve is taking its time to create high-caliber VR experiences that truly differentiate themselves from traditional games, thus influencing more people to embrace the technology. In order to do this, the level of technology that Newell desires will need to catch up to his design ideas. Newell predicted VR will overtake almost all other display technologies in terms of resolution and refresh rate by as soon as 2018.

We already knew that Valve was dedicating a large amount of its resources to VR to turn its ambitions into reality. Last year, it was reported that roughly a third of Valve’s employees were developing for VR.

We’ll just have to wait and see if Newell’s vision for VR pans out in the three games.

Steven Petite
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Steven is a writer from Northeast Ohio currently based in Louisiana. He writes about video games and books, and consumes…
Is the Stardew Valley 1.6 update on consoles and mobile? Switch, PS5, Xbox, more
Stardew Valley

There are few cozy games as successful and beloved as Stardew Valley, so it's no wonder it has received regular updates since its 2016 release.

The 1.6 update for Stardew Valley was released back in March 2024 for PC, adding new festivals and events, NPC dialogues, farm types, more pets, and much more. Unfortunately, the update did not immediately release on consoles, leaving farmers playing on smartphones, Switch, Xbox or PlayStation waiting for all the new content.

Read more
How to open the Warden Vault in Dragon Age: The Veilguard
Inside the Warden Vault in Dragon Age: The Veilguard.

If you thought the puzzles in Dragon Age: The Veilguard were too easy, you haven't tackled The Warden Vault quest yet. Available in the Rivain Coast, The Warden Vault is a side quest, one of many incredible side quests, that has you figure out how to open the locked door to the Warden's Vault underneath a huge castle.

This puzzle requires you to solve three separate puzzles within the castle, but they are far from obvious. Without the right guidance, Rook and the party can easily get lost throughout this castle and not know how to unlock the Warden's Vault in Dragon Age: The Veilguard, so here's how to solve it.
How to unlock The Warden Vault side quest

Read more
The fastest ways to gain XP in Call of Duty: Black Ops 6
Kill Order gameplay in Call of Duty: Black Ops 6.

Ever since Modern Warfare, Call of Duty fans have been obsessed with finding every tip and trick they can to level up faster. Now that Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 has arrived with a refreshed Prestige system, the drive to grind levels is again at an all-time high. While everything you do does earn you XP, they are not all created equal. Just like picking your Wildcards or Perks, earning XP as fast as possible takes a bit of thought and planning. If there's a piece of equipment you have your eye on at a high level, or just want to grind through some Prestige ranks as fast as possible, here are the fastest ways to grind XP in Black Ops 6.
Do your dailies

We'll get the most obvious tip out of the way first. Daily challenges are back and work just as they always have. Every 24 hours you will be given a handful of small optional tasks to complete for a heap of bonus XP. These can be things like getting Scorestreak kills, getting Point Blank Kills, and getting kills with a specific weapon type. Most daily challenges are worth 2,500 XP, which is already a nice bonus, but there is also a fourth one that can be worth between 3,000 and 5,000 additional XP. Each day you log on, you should prioritize your daily challenges.
Tailor your loadout and play the objective

Read more