Valve is rumored to be working on a new game using the Source 2 engine and is codenamed “Citadel.”
So what do we have here? A fresh new bit of code to an as-yet-unannounced Valve game? Could it be Half-Life 3? Probably not, but there’s some evidence to show Valve is definitely up to something.
The news comes from Tyler McVicker over at the Valve News Network. A recent update to Dota 2 included a whole bunch of code for something called “citadel”, including a soundscape call line and navigation points to some sort of unknown map. The only things they all had in common was the word “citadel.”
At first, McVicker believed that this was a reference to the still-unannounced Half-Life VR project which popped up in rumor earlier this year. Supposedly, Half-Life VR will be a prequel to Half-Life 2, thus preserving the legendary ability for Valve to avoid making Half-Life 3.
However, McVicker then pointed out several other aspects of the code that seemed to indicate that Citadel was actually an entirely new game. The game will still use the Source 2 engine, which underpins Dota 2, Dota Underlords, and Artifact, but is not related to either of those previous games.
There’s also code that mentions stealth sections, AI bot navigation, as well as a top-down minimap.
McVicker says that all this points to a new tactics game based on the Source 2 engine. It wouldn’t be an autochess game since that’s already covered in Dota Underlords, and McVicker seems unconvinced that it could even be a first-person shooter, let alone a Half-Life game.
But let’s get back to the name Citadel. In Half-Life 2, the Citadel is the giant tower in City 17 that houses Earth Administration after the Combine invades the Earth. You eventually blow it up in Half-Life 2’s various episodes.
That’s about the only citadel we can think of in Valve’s repertoire, so if a game codenamed Citadel isn’t even related to Half-Life, we have no idea what it could be. We’ll have to wait for more info on this one, but as with anything Valve, we could be waiting a long time.
(via PC Gamer)