Firewatch’s Developers Are Now Part Of Valve

In some rather surprising news, Campo Santo, the developers behind the acclaimed Firewatch and upcoming In the Valley of Gods, are going to work for Valve. What this actually means is quite little at the time being, as Campo Santo will continue to support Firewatch – there’s a Switch port in the works – and they’re still hard at work on In the Valley of Gods, which they promise they’ll finish despite now working at a company with a bit of a (false) reputation for never, ever releasing games.

There’s a touch of whimsy to the way that Campo Santo announced the news, outlining three reasons for agreeing to join Valve:

First, we really like making video games. Furthermore, and perhaps more accurately, we really like making and producing entertainment. From the day-to-day production of our last game, Firewatch, to the way we run the company, make merchandise, meet players at expos and shows, send out a quarterly literary journal, throw open-to-the-public game demos in the middle of an artificial forest—all of it is geared towards surprising, delighting, and entertaining the customers who have shared in our success.

In Valve we found a group of folks who, to their core, feel the same way about the work that they do (this, you may be surprised to learn, doesn’t happen every day). In us, they found a group with unique experience and valuable, diverse perspectives. It quickly became an obvious match.

Second, while visiting IGN’s headquarters in early 2015 to talk about Firewatch, we came across an undelivered 2011 Game of the Year Award for Portal 2. It happened to be engraved on an unopened bottle of champagne. Never ones to pass up free alcohol, we stole it and drank it to celebrate the launch of Firewatch a year later. So in some sense, this is a return home for us. Well, for that bottle of champagne.

Third, and last, we had a series of long conversations with the people at Valve and everyone shared the satisfaction we take in working with people whose talents dwarf our own to make things we never thought possible. Both sides spoke about our values and how, when you get right down to it, we, as human beings, are hard-limited by the time we have left when it comes to making the things we care about and believe in. They asked us if we’d all be interested in coming up to Bellevue and doing that there and we said yes.

In the Valley of Gods was announced at the tail end of 2017, and is planned for release on PC, Mac and Linux (though fingers crossed for console as well, right?). It tells the story of a disgraced film maker and her partner as they explore pyramids, tombs, and uncover treasure that leaves them in a spot of danger.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceJcHUoO734

Source: Campo Santo

Written by
I'm probably wearing toe shoes, and there's nothing you can do to stop me!

5 Comments

  1. I was really looking forward to that too….

  2. It wasn’t long ago Valve was saying they wanted to make games again. Are Valve going to publish In The Valley of Gods now too?

  3. Sony should have snapped these guys up.

    • I mean it nicely but Sony or Microsoft. Basically, anyone other than Valve. I just don’t know what goes on at Valve any more. Such a strange enigma of a company these days. :-\

Comments are now closed for this post.