Valve made a new bite-sized Portal game for Steam Deck

I just brought up 4,000-word review of Valve’s Steam Deck portable game console, which went on sale to the first batch of early users today. But the company has a surprise announcement as well – Aperture desk functiona new bite-sized experience set in outlet Universe to be downloaded for free on March 1st. It’s designed to introduce new Steam Deck buyers to the amazing suite of mobile controls, and it includes… toilets and chairs.

Assuming you’re not already in the middle of the teaser video at the top of this post, here’s how Valve tries to insert the needle between them Our pervasive desire for Valve to remember how to count to three And the potential disappointment that Valve hasn’t managed yet:

Aperture desk function He reimagines this type of walking simulator and places it in a world where he sits still behind objects.

You play as nobody’s newbie on their first day on the job – your heart is full of hope and your legs are full of dreams, eager to climb that corporate ladder. But life has other plans, and they all include chairs.

Designed as a free-to-play short for Valve’s new Steam Deck, desk job It guides you through the handheld controls and features, while not being nearly as boring as it sounds.

no Gate 3!

Lower your expectations: This is not a sequel to outlet. Now get ready to raise it a bit, because it’s in the expanded universe of those games.

It looks like it’s fun! But it surprised me for two reasons:

1. Valve hasn’t said a word about it.
2. valve frankly He told reporters that it is not I will do anything like that.

In an exclusive interview, Edge Magazine Valve founder Gabe Newell asked if his company had ever considered developing a “custom” game in order to “demonstrate the capabilities of the hardware” that would be launched alongside Deck, as Valve did With laboratory or other experiences in virtual reality.

Gabin reportedly said:

Yeah. I mean, we’ve looked at it – it’s just a matter of resources and time. We decided to spend more of our resources on our current games like dotta And the counter strike And think of ways to improve it on this machine. We felt this was more bang for the buck for our efforts than building some kind of slab.

Valve suggested me too in August They won’t make any games exclusive to ported games the way they made them Half-life: Alex Exclusively for VR and wrote in the instructions The idea of ​​Steam Deck exclusives “doesn’t make much sense to us”.

But it may not be exclusive. Either way, I definitely wouldn’t look like a gift outlet Oral experience.