Campo Santo is a pretty laid back company, not least of which because they are the sort of company that steals a bottle of champagne from IGN when they get a tour of their facilities. They are also a bit of an oddball developer because they have a Quarterly Review for literary short stories, fictions, interviews, and nonfiction. All of that is to say, they like moving to the beat of their own drum, so why was it that Valve wanted them in the first place?

As pointed out previously, Campo Santo has a lot of similarities to Valve. The cartoonish style of their games looks like something straight out of Team Fortress 2, and the humor of Firewatch is the relatable kind of silly and dry that populated much of the Half-Life series. But more than that, both of Campo Santo’s games have been first-person, which is something that would blend perfectly with Valve’s vision of the future for VR.

While Valve considered The Lab to be their first game in years, most gamers considered it more of a proof of concept. The Lab featured a number of mini-games and explorable applications of VR technology using the Vive, but it wasn’t the immersive and thorough process that a Valve game normally is. In light of recent promises from Newell that Valve is back into the games business, Valve also said in December of last year that they are in full production of three VR titles. In usual Valve fashion, no details have been released about these games whatsoever, but Campo Santo will surely be playing a role in one way or another.

The one thing that Campo Santo does offer Valve is a game propelled by its story and open-ended exploration of a first-person perspective. While Half-Life, Portal, and Team Fortress have all been first-person, none of them have been moved forward by their first-person perspective, instead being pushed forward by the FPS or puzzle elements of the game. Campo Santo has a unique position of making games that direct a player’s attention where they want it to be and where it is essential be in order to progress in the game. For Valve, this is an integral tool in creating VR games that are more than just the tech demo that The Lab felt like.

All eyes should be on Campo Santo’s new title, In the Valley of Gods, to see just what they bring to the table for first-person. Chances are, Valve will be putting techniques from that title to use in future VR games