Valve— the company behind Half-Life and Steam—is working on a new game, possibly called Impasse. It is possibly a team-based third-person shooter with MOBA elements and tower defense. And people are playing it right now through a closed and private beta. However, some of those same people started leaking footage of the as-yet-unannounced game online, and the reaction was… mixed, to say the least.
We knew about Impasse for years, based on leaks and information from other Valve games. The project is probably codenamed The Citadel and it was at one point known internally as Neon Prime. It probably started development sometime in 2018 and has gone through many changes according to previous leaksalthough it has always been an online team-based shooter with DOTA-similar items. at a given moment, It will reportedly be set in the Half-Lifeis universebut that seems to have changed as shown in the recently leaked gameplay.
So what is it Impasse today? Well, based on gameplay and screenshots from the closed alpha test, Impasse will be an online character-based third-person shooter featuring MOBA-like lane maps, mobs to kill, and Bioshock Infinite– like rails you can grind to get to areas quickly.
In the alpha test footage that has leaked online, it looks like the game currently has 19 charactersand they all share a similar steampunk-meets-fantasy style to the rest of the game’s vibe.
Kotaku has contacted Valve regarding Impasse.
It should be noted that this construction of Impasse it’s probably still early days and the game will change in appearance and gameplay as it nears official launch, the reaction to leaked gameplay and screenshots of Valve’s next big thing has been pretty muted, with most fans more confused than anything else.
The reaction to Valve’s next game wasn’t great
While I noticed some people excited to see what Valve was working on, most of the chatter online Impasse focuses on how “late” this game looks. The craze for hero shooters has all but disappeared, and the search for another, with MOBA-elements no less, seems to be lacking. The general style and IP-free world of the game also confused fans who have long wanted a new one Half-Life or Portal game from Valve, but instead they get something closer to Valorant answers Overwatch.
According to data from Indoor gamespeople who are said to have played Impasse say it plays a lot like a MOBA, with creeps running around the maps. Killing these weaker NPCs (probably known as candles or candlesticks) will reward players with currency that can be used to upgrade their character during that match. A giant boss is also reported to appear in the middle of the map and can be killed for more upgrade currency.
I’m still excited for Valve to make another game, but I’m not sure it’s what I (and many others) wanted from the company known for developing Half-Life 2 and Left 4 Dead. I’ve seen some people suggest that it will eventually work out. Valve are good at making games. And sure, that’s generally true, but keep in mind that when it comes to original, in-house designed multiplayer games, well, Valve’s track record is far from good.
Yes DOTA 2, CSGO, and TF2 are wonderful, but these are all games inherited by Valve from outside developers and modders and then upgraded and expanded upon. When we are talking about entirely original online games, Valve released things like Artifact (now a dead card game), Ricochet (bad HL1-era esport thing), DOTA Underlords (an Automatic chess a clone that disappeared after a few months), and Half-Life Deathmatch which… well, that was okay.
But yeah, I’m not confident that Valve’s next game will set the world on fire, and the online reaction to it seems to support those concerns. We’ll have to wait and see how Valve reacts to this feedback and how it affects (or doesn’t affect) Impasse.
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