In case you somehow missed it, alongside the launch of the Steam Deck portable Valve also released a new video game for free, Aperture Desk Job. That said, Valve itself doesn’t describe it as a video game so much as a “free playable short” intended to showcase the Steam Deck’s features and controls. A new interview, however, teases that Valve is very much working on multiple video games.
As part of a larger interview about the new Steam Deck, Valve designer Greg Coomer told Axios there are several games that the company is currently developing — but that’s about all he said on the matter. “There are multiple games in development right now at Valve,” Coomer said, “and I think they’re pretty exciting ones.”
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The brief note about multiple video games being in development might not seem like much, but Valve is notoriously private about what it’s doing behind closed doors. The last video game that the company released was Half-Life: Alyx in 2020, which was for virtual reality headsets only, while the last broadly available title that wasn’t a standalone version of an already existing game mode was 2018’s Artifact, which completely ceased development last year following a poor reception at launch. In short, it’s been a long time since Valve made a truly new video game and released it.
And it is clear that Valve knows about the public perception of all of this by the description of Aperture Desk Job. “Lower your expectations: This is not a sequel to Portal,” the official description reads in part. “Now get ready to raise them slightly, because it is in the expanded universe of those games. Desk Job puts you squarely in the driver’s seat at Aperture Science. Then quickly removes the driving part and adds a desk in front of the seat.”
As noted above, Valve recently released a “free playable short” video game called Aperture Desk Job set in the universe of the Portal franchise. The Steam Deck has also released its initial batch of orders and is still available to order for $399 to $529 to $649, depending on the exact model, though orders now are not expected to actually ship for some time.
What do you think about the tease that Valve is working on a number of video games at the moment? Do you want to get a Steam Deck for yourself? Let us know in the comments, or feel free to reach out and hit me up directly over on Twitter at @rollinbishop in order to talk about all things gaming!
