There's a new video game coming from the makers of Firewatch. It's called In the Valley of Gods. I was screaming in our Discord channel as it was revealed during Thursday night's Game Awards. Screaming.
Bookended as a black-and-white silent film, In the Valley of Gods is a single-player first-person adventure set in 1920's Egypt. You and your partner are explorers and film makers. You're out to make a seemingly impossible discovery, one that's fraught with dark burial chambers and solar alignments with the sun in the sky and the statues built for it.
Do you see guns anywhere? Regenerating health bars? Multiplayer loot boxes?
No. And stop looking. This is from Campo Santo, the folks that took you on an adventure-game romp through a crumbling marriage in the Wyoming wilderness of the late '80s.
In the Valley of Gods is not related to Firewatch [Gaming Nexus score 9.5 out of 10]. But it's made by roughly the same 12 tightly knit developers that made 2016's adventure game of the year.
Your only emotional lifeline in Firewatch was the person on the other end of a handheld radio. Now, in Valley, you've got "your old partner." I don't know if that means ex-spouse or simply old coworker, but I'm willing to bet it'll involve complex interpersonal relationships either way.
So, this video is bookended by black-and-white video. That may just be a simple reminder that the game takes place in the early days of film. But I'm also curious if this might be a silent game (as opposed to a silent movie)? Which would be incredible if they're heading in such a direction. Adventure games are very talkative nowadays. Audio logs, dialogues, inner monologues, etc. Firewatch was a (wonderfully) talkative game. So, Valley, here, could follow Firewatch's lead and be wonderfully talkative, or it could go silent. Perhaps I'm hypothesizing in the completely wrong direction. Who knows?
Not sure if the soundtrack in this trailer has any chance of making it into the final game, but if so, I'm down. LP's "Muddy Waters," the song you're hearing at the 0:25 mark, is my new jam.
The game is in first person, but the shadow you cast at 1:05 seems indicative that you're a woman. The shape of your hands—to me, anyway—also seem to verify this. You prominently wear a wedding ring. Kind of an important thing to note, if you happen to have played Firewatch. While your partner does not wear a ring.
The trailer is a grower. I like it more and more, the more I see it. It feels like there's a little less of that Olly Moss travel-poster art style here, though it's here. And while the location is great on paper (Egypt is kind of having a moment, considering Assassin's Creed Origins and the latest Destiny 2: Curse of Osiris DLC), 1920's Egypt has less of a distinctive story to tell than, say, the Shoshone National Forest in 1989.
Regardless: Boy am I excited. But I have to be patient. No one's exploring In the Valley of Gods until 2019. It's coming to PC, but it's not ruling out a possible console launch.
