Well, at Least We Know In The Valley of Gods Would Have Had Amazing Water

ign.com:

In The Valley of Gods, the hotly anticipated follow-up to Firewatch from developer Campo Santo, was put on hold after Valve acquired the company back in 2018. Now, years later, it remains on hold, but one Valve developer has given fans a glimpse at what might have been.

Announced during the 2017 Game Awards, In The Valley of Gods is set in Egypt during the late 1920s. It stars Rashida and Zora, a pair of documentary filmmakers who accidentally made it big with a hit movie but have since seen their careers go off a cliff. They reunite years later after receiving information about the lost Tomb of Nefertiti, with a goal of reigniting their careers by documenting their trip to Egypt.

Valve visual effects developer Matt Wilde took to Bluesky to publish a six second water test created by Camp Santo before the studio’s move to Valve. It shows the player character bobbing in impressively realistic water while looking out from inside a cave at the other protagonist from a first-person perspective. “I do often tend to work on liquidy things,” Wilde said.

Matthew Wilde, the Valve developer behind the water shader for Counter-Strike 2, has shared a rare gameplay footage. It shows the water technology that was tested for In The Valley of Gods before Valve acquired the company Campo Santo. Team shelved the game not so long after… pic.twitter.com/wIs6Im8KYx

That’s a reference to Wilde’s work on Valve's 2020 virtual reality exclusive Half-Life: Alyx, which caught attention for ultra realistic liquid in glass bottles. More recently, Wilde worked on Counter-Strike 2’s water and effects.

Spent a good chunk of lock-down doing this important work. Boozy liquid shader, now available in the latest update for Half-Life: Alyx pic.twitter.com/Iw9h98pmEg

Wilde’s In The Valley of Gods clip obviously sparks questions about whether Camp Santo / Valve will one day return to the game. “To fans looking forward to In The Valley of Gods, it’s probably clear that the optimistic ‘2019’ at the end of the