Valve Would Make A Great Open World Game
Valve's developers have a very particular set of skills. From the original Half-Life in 1998 through Half-Life: Alyx in 2020, the Seattle-based studio has defined, then refined, a specific kind of game. Despite shooters generally following the narrative model that Valve set with Gordon Freeman's crowbar-toting trek through Black Mesa, few narrative shooters come anywhere near the unique blueprint that Valve established 24 years ago and continues to perfect.
That's because across Half-Life, Half-Life 2, Portal, Portal 2, and Half-Life: Alyx, Valve has made games that combine seamless in-engine storytelling, clever shooting, intelligent and funny humor, and physics-based puzzle solving. Puzzle games have borrowed the physics, shooters have borrowed the emphasis on narrative, and plenty of games have attempted to keep players interested with a jokey tone. But no one is combining all of it into one immersive package. No one except Valve.
RELATED: Half-Life Is More Than Just Gordon Freeman
The Half-Life series is the best vehicle for all of those characteristics. Though I enjoy the Portal games, I imagine it must be difficult for Valve to continue to iterate on the one-room-at-a-time structure two games deep, when we fully expect the games to go off the rails (in a good way). There's a fool-me-once-ness to Portal's structure and when you've broken out of Aperture Labs once or twice, it becomes difficult to believe that you'll stay there long.
The spirit of Portal lives on though (and not just in the Steam Deck showcase Aperture Desk Job). Half-Life: Alyx felt like Valve bringing Portal's comedic sensibility into its other flagship series. Half-Life: Alyx kept to the Portal tradition of casting a comedian as your companion
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