Valve is experimenting using Half-Life characters, environments, “ideas” and other assets in its virtual reality technology.
"We've said, 'Let's take some existing art and see how it fits,'" Valve programmer Jeep Barnett told Kotaku during GDC 2015. "So yeah, we'll grab some headcrabs, we'll grab the machine guns from Half-Life, the rocket launcher—all those different fun things—and see how they play in VR. But right now, it's a tool for exploring the different kind of game designs we want to do.”
Barnett added, according to Kotaku, that “things are still things are still up in the air” for a Half-Life VR game.
"We're not saying, 'no,'" he said, "but we don't know what the right thing is [yet]. Our most precious resource is time, and we don't have enough time for people to do everything. Would we like to make all of our franchises in VR? Absolutely. But we don't have enough time or people. So we have to figure out what's the best fit, what plays to the strengths of VR."
Barnett explained that dabbling with experiments like these can result in new games, for instance Portal was conceived out of experiments with Half-Life assets.
Valve is currently assessing which franchises would be suitable for VR, Barnett said, and that “nothing's off limits.” He mentioned the developer has also experimented with Left 4 Dead using pre-existing art, Dota 2 to allow people experience the universe first-hand, and a Time Crisis-inspired cover-based shooter.
"Is Half-Life a good fit? Is Left 4 Dead a good fit? Is a new franchise a good fit? I don't know yet,” he said. “We're really trying to cover the broad spectrum of what we could do, and then we'll start focusing on spearheading that."This week, when HTC and Valve revealed the Vive virtual reality headset partnership, chairwoman of HTC Cher Wang mentioned that the company was collaborating with Valve on a virtual reality Half-Life experience. Wang later said that HTC was working with Valve on new VR experiences, but not necessarily Half-Life. Jenna Pitcher is a freelance journalist writing for IGN. You can follow her on Twitter.