'Firewatch' studio moves to Valve
Valve Corp, responsible for "Half-Life 2," "Portal 2," "Dota 2" and the Steam store, has hired all twelve staff members at "Firewatch" studio Campo Santo.
Two of its co-founders were toast of the game industry, having led the award-winning "Walking Dead" adventure game adaptation, while studio debut "Firewatch" released in 2016 to widespread critical acclaim.
All 12 staff members of Campo Santo have agreed to join Valve, operator of digital download store and online computer gaming service Steam, and developer of numerous influential hit games such as those in the "Half-Life," "Portal" and "Left 4 Dead" franchises, in addition to lucrative eSport staple "Dota 2."
Campo Santo's staff will continue production on their current project, Egyptian archaeology mystery adventure "In the Valley of Gods," which was announced December 2017 for a projected 2019 release.
Valve has a history of timely acquisitions. Though "Half-Life" was an internal project from start to finish, many of the company's core franchises originated with external teams that were then brought in-house.
"Team Fortress 2," "Counter-Strike," "Day of Defeat," "Portal," "Left 4 Dead" and "Alien Swarm" came about in this way, while the then-lead designer on "Dota" was hired to direct "Dota 2."
Not only does Valve develop, publish and hold enormous annual tournaments around "Dota 2," but it has a digital card game in development, "Artifact," due late 2018 on computers, and 2019 on Android and iOS mobile systems.
Several members of the Campo Santo studio have been intrisically involved in the Idle Thumbs podcasting network, through which their interests in "Dota 2" and card game "Android: Netrunner" can be traced; "Dota Today" ran for two years from 2013, while "Terminal 7" has been going for five years.
The acquisition could also result in a renewed focus on narrative-driven games, after Valve's four best-known writers -- Erik Wolpaw, Jay Pinkerton, Chet Faliszek and Marc Laidlaw -- left the company over a 19 month period between January 2016 and September 2017.
Like Valve, which has produced ancilliary material for "Left 4 Dead," "Team Fortress 2" and even a winter sale, Campo Santo has been overseeing its own Quarterly Review, an attempt to answer obscure video gaming questions and an inquiry into unusual topics such as the importance of mythological horses, the British parking lot resting place of Pocohantas and the weirdest house in America.
