When Valve swallowed up Campo Santo, Zaarin predicted Jake would jump on a Steam overhaul project. Turns out that was closer to correct than what we had expected.
In a statement accidentally sent to Polygon instead of us, Jake said:
To fans looking forward to In the Valley of Gods, it’s probably clear that the optimistic “2019” at the end of the announcement trailer isn’t going to be accurate. In the end, Valve Time makes fools of us all. But yes, developers from the former Campo Santo team have joined other projects at Valve, including Half-Life: Alyx. As you can imagine, our experience in the first-person adventure genre is pretty relevant. You hear a lot about how at Valve you can work on what you want. It turns out that’s true, and there’s a lot of work available. As we integrated ourselves into Valve it became clear there was a lot of valuable work to be done on Half-Life: Alyx. Some of us starting lending a hand, and have since become full-time on the project as it approaches launch. Similarly, some ex-Campos are working on Dota Underlords, some are on Steam, and so on. So to answer your question as of today, In the Valley of Gods development is on hold—but it certainly feels like a project people can and may return to. And when that happens, we’ll find an exciting way to let fans know.
And that's all we got.
Source: Not Jake
AlfredJ
And to think that Mixnmojo made all that happen in the first place. I know I never actually contributed anything to this website, but I still feel like I should get a check in the mail at some point.
I’ll give you 20% of mine.
I was really looking forward to this one. Loved Firewatch and these games seemed, in their own way, to be part of the extended Lucasgames family tree. But from listening to Idle Thumbs for all those years I knew how important Half-Life was to those guys, and with Campo becoming a part of Valve it seemed almost unavoidable they would at least try to do something to finally get some version of Half-Life 3 made. The fact that it actually happened is insanely cool, but I wish it wouldn't have had to happen at the expense of Valley. They're already talking about more Half-Life games after this, so I'm guessing they'll be working on those for a while. Oh well, game development is a harsh world.
Also it's pretty insane that Jake has Sam & Max, Monkey Island and Half-Life 3 on his CV. And to think that Mixnmojo made all that happen in the first place. I know I never actually contributed anything to this website, but I still feel like I should get a check in the mail at some point.
https://twitter.com/DuncanFyfe/status/1202292826828132355