Last July Valve Inc. revealed they were working on a powerful handheld called the Steam Deck — a PC clone that they claim can run virtually anything on the Steam platform. If you were one of the first to preorder the device, you might still be under the impression it will ship to you in one month. It won’t.
We learned a bit more about Half-Life: Alyx today, For one thing, it’s confirmed to not be Half-Life 3, not that anyone expected it to be. It takes place between the first and second Half-Life games.
It’s been one of the most requested sequels of all time, from a series tragically left hanging back in the early 2000s. And now that Shenmue 3 is finally here, we can get to that other one. Valve took the occasion to announce an in-development continuation of Half-Life…sort of.
For those unfamiliar with Bridge Constructor, it’s a game where you’ve given a limited number of parts, shown an area that needs a bridge, and given the task of crafting something that’ll support the weight of a car. The series has sold millions of copies on cell phones, PCs and consoles, but just when you thought you had the entire gimmick mastered….now you have to start thinking with portals.
Marc Laidlaw was a writer at Valve back when they were making Half-Life games. He worked on the plotline for the first Half-Life, its sequel, and the two follow-up chapters. Valve also planned a third post-HL2 chapter that, for whatever reason, was never released, leaving the tale of Gordon Freeman on a cliffhanger, unresolved to this day.
Half-Life series writer Marc Liadlaw has spoken about his previous plans for the franchise and how the third instalment would not have been the end. While he no longer works at Valve, he was a major part of the series in the past and had knowledge of previous plans.
Valve has hired a significant portion of the development team behind Kerbal Space Program. According to former Valve employee Roger Lundeen, the members of Squad were brought into Valve at some point in the last few months.
By this, he means he hates the restrictions that consoles often put on developers. He believes it limits not just the vision of the game, but what the game can truly be.
The developer behind Platformica has apologized after his game was removed from Steam by Valve for posting fake reviews on the store. Several accounts that were under control of Lunyov Artem Pavlovych had been found to have posted positive reviews of the game. Posting on Steam, he admitted to writing the reviews and stated that he deserved the punishment.
Vince Weaver is an assistant professor at the University of Maine’s Electrical & Computer Engineering department. He has a YouTube channel where he shows off some of his wacky mad science projects, and his latest was to create a port of Valve’s classic puzzler Portal to the Apple II. And he pulled it off!
A Federal Court in Australia has fined Valve $2.1 million for consumer law violations that occurred due to the company’s policy of refunds on Steam. In particular, the punishment is centered on the fact that Steam had no advertised refund system in place between 2011 and 2014.
The Washington Gambling Corporation wants Valve to know that it means business. Today, the commission revealed in a press release that the Valve Corporation missed an important deadline to end the transfer of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive items on Steam for the purposes of gambling. Valve apparently had until Friday, October 14 to explain to the state how the company was “in full compliance with Washington’s gambling laws.” Otherwise, Valve could face some serious actions.