Valve Looked at Portal VR Before Half-Life: Alyx, Not Working on Left 4 Dead 3 - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 24 March 2020 / 663 Views
Robin Walker from Valve spoke with IGN an interview about the Left 4 Dead 3 rumors, Half-Life: Alyx, Portal VR, and more.
"We did briefly explore some Left 4 Dead next-gen opportunities a few years ago, but we are absolutely not working on anything Left 4 Dead-related now, and haven't for years," said Valve in a statement on the Left 4 Dead 3 rumors.
Walker said the reason for the rumors was that the team was experimenting with was Source 2 and used a section of a Left 4 Dead level that eventually leaked online.
"We used parts of a Left 4 Dead level as the first bit of level geometry to start building in Source 2, so a bit of that got out. It was essentially a rendering test, and people thought that meant we were working on Left 4 Dead," said Walker.
"We built lots of different things as part of building technology in Source 2... There were groups here who would generate a product in mind that would attempt to be a target for Source 2, and so a couple of those were Left 4 Dead-related things, but none of them reached the point where we were like, 'now this is a product team that we're going to build a big product around.' They were more tools for moving Source 2 forward."
Portal VR was another game that Valve had originally looked at before deciding on Half-Life: Alyx for its fist major virtual reality game.
"We [looked] at our various IPs when we started... before we selected Half-Life... which is a really standard thing for us to do," said Walker. "When you're trying to explore something new, of course you start with 'What are all the tools we've got from the past that could help us rapidly learn here?'
"So we looked at various IPs and, yep, Portal was one of them, [but] we didn't get very far in that. It was pretty clear when we looked at Portal as a whole... If we can't do player movement, not as a result of their choice, but by launching them... momentum...standing on things... all that sort of stuff... then a whole swath of Portal's puzzles... the whole back half of Portal, or more... goes away, and we'd need some alternative thing.
"The whole point of using existing IPs is to get a head start on trying to understand and learn, and if we start by taking away one of the most interesting things from the IP we're looking at, then it doesn't seem like we're making a good choice there."
Half-Life: Alyx is available now for Windows PC via Steam.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel dedicated to gaming Let's Plays and tutorials. You can contact the author at wdangelo@vgchartz.com or on Twitter @TrunksWD.
