Big news comes in many forms but none can infuriate and exhilarate the gaming public quite like a tease from Valve that they have a huge game in the works.
On top of that, when this follows on the heels of a VR headset announcement, you have a recipe for rampant rumors and speculation like you’ve never seen before.
Of course, it doesn’t help that the rumored Valve Index VR unit is being marketed towards the high-end of the market.
So, you can expect that when Valve teases out a “flagship game” for VR, most people are going to immediately think “Here’s Half Life 3….hopefully.”
Maybe?
No one knows, but we do know that Valve is working on a big game for VR and that could mean a lot of things but it typically means good things.
Heck, even Portal for VR makes total sense.
Per tradition, Valve hasn’t said a word about what the game is going to be like and, honestly, we probably won’t know too much until the game is months from actual release.
As PC Gamer speculates, “As for whether or not a Half-Life VR game exists at all, I think the evidence (which I run down in yesterday’s article) is pretty compelling, but we’ll have to wait a little longer to find out what this ‘flagship’ game is. The word does imply it comes from one of Valve’s most beloved series—a ‘flagship’ Microsoft game is a Halo game, for instance.”
Another contender for the flagship title would be one of the Left 4 Dead games as well or maybe even Counter Strike.
Valve has a lot of triple-A stuff in their inventory, so speculating that it “must” be Half Life 3 just ignores too many things.
But one can dream, right?
Valve did tease a controller concept being tested by “Aperture Hand Labs” according to PC Gamer, for what it is worth.
Half Life 3 in VR could be the game-changing title everyone has waited for in the virtual reality gaming space.
Not only does it command huge recognition and has a dedicated fan base, but also it would be assumed to be high quality from the start.
It has name brand recognition that is real and rightfully earned.
That said, why in the heck would Valve risk that on a VR game.
As it stands now, most FPS titles in VR control much differently from traditional games. Of course, the geniuses at Valve could overcome any problem, but the chance that it is poorly received and tarnishes the name brand is a strong factor in many decisions made these days by any company.
Continuing to speculate, it would seem that Portal would make the most sense but that’s not nearly as exciting as a potential Half Life 3. Portal is a puzzle game and, on top of that, is a spatial reasoning game as well. These two aspects make it a natural fit for VR but we’ll just have to wait and see what Valve has up its sleeve.
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