Campo Santo's In the Valley of the Gods on hold as team shifts to Valve projects

The project Firewatch developer Campo Santo had been working on before being acquired by Valve last year has been officially shelved for the time being as more and more members of that team have instead focused their time on Valve’s upcoming VR game and other projects.

Polygon received a statement from Campo Santo co-founder Jake Rodkin after a number of small hints put In the Valley of the Gods’ future in question, confirming that it isn’t in active development but “certainly feels like a project people can and may return to.”

The 12 person team of Campo Santo joined Valve back in April 2018, saying at the time that all team members would keep their current roles and continue work on In the Valley of the Gods which had been announced just five months prior. Shortly after, Rodkin explained in a conversation with Rock Paper Shotgun that the decision allowed the team to shift their focus back to game development and away from the day-to-day obligations that come with running a business.

In this latest statement (found in full on Polygon), Rodkin says that the developers that came over with Campo Santo took advantage of Valve’s unique studio structure to contribute to projects like Half-Life: Alyx, due out in March, the Valve team already had in the works, and putting In the Valley of the Gods on hold in the process.

“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," says Rodkin. "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.”

Members of the Campo Santo team have since gone on to contribute their development talents to Half-Life: Alyx, the early access game Dota Underlords, Steam itself, and other projects within Valve.