Valve, the company behind Steam and the HTC Vive, has revealed that they are working on their own titles for the rapidly expanding virtual reality market.
Gabe Newell, the co-founder of Valve Corporation was answering questions on Reddit, when he was asked, “[I’m] interested in seeing what your view is on the direction that Valve as a company should take in the future?” Gabe Newell responded by saying that alongside the development of the new HTC Vive Knuckle controller, the company is designing their own VR games.
The Knuckles controller first appeared at the Steam Dev Days event in October 2016, and looks to take the idea of how to properly interact within a VR title to the next level. Using two controllers attached to the users hands, players should be able to have much greater freedom and control whilst using the HTC Vive.
The confirmation by Newell that Valve, (once purely a game developer) are simultaneously designing their own VR games alongside this new control method, is an exciting prospect. The company, which is behind huge games such as Half-Life, Counter Strike and DOTA 2, know a thing or two when it comes to making an impressive title. With the market of virtual reality gaming looking like the next step in computer games, Valve is clearly taking a pro-active response, and looking to create their own brand of gameplay for the fully immersive genre.
Gabe Newell didn’t stop with his reveal of VR titles being under development. He also stated that AI development is something that is interesting to quite a few people at the company, and what direction that thinking computers might take in the future. Gabe Newell himself stated that he personally is “looking at research in brain-computer interfaces.” Highly advanced science to say the least.
For now though, those of us who are excited by the fully immersive worlds that VR gaming can offer can look forward to Valve throwing their hat into the software ring, with their very own titles for the genre. We shall be watching closely for further announcements.