Valve datamine finds traces of Half-Life: Alyx follow up and cancelled Portal game

A datamine of Valve’s recent Aperture Desk Job tech demo found traces of a Half-Life: Alyx follow-up and canceled Portal game.

As spotted by VGC, YouTuber Tyler McVicker discovered a number of interesting things buried within Aperture Desk Job’s code. The four main finds include: "Citadel, some kind of follow up to Half-Life: Alyx, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive’s Source 2 port, and a recreation of the previously canceled Portal paint game."

Arguably two of the more interesting Valve games mentioned in the video are a Half-Life: Alyx follow-up and the canceled Portal paint game. In McVicker’s latest YouTube video, they talk about Half-Life Citadel, however, they do say in their video that they will discuss what was found in terms of the other three games in another video. 

As McVicker says so themselves though, the contents of the video "could very well be meant for other projects, but with no discernible tags, it all seems to fit within this one game." Not only this but, also echoed by McVicker, none of the games mentioned in the datamine have been officially confirmed by Valve so it’s definitely best to take them all with a grain of salt. 

McVicker previously shared information about Half-Life: Citadel back in November 2021 revealing that they believe Half-Life 3 was scrapped in favor of RTS/FPS hybrid for Steam Deck. According to the YouTuber, Citadel is an RTS/FPS co-op game set in the Half-Life universe and incorporates elements of Left4Dead, Alien Swarm, and other RTS games that will show off what the Steam Deck is capable of. 

It’s clear that Valve is not only hard at work delivering the Steam Deck but also working on a number of games behind closed doors. Although there’s no way of knowing exactly what is currently developing, Valve designer Greg Coomer did recently say: "There are multiple games in development right now at Valve, and I think they're pretty exciting ones." Whether or not any of them are listed in the datamine, we will have to wait for official confirmation. 

Wondering what games in your library are ready for the Valve handheld? See if your library is Steam Deck verified ahead of the handheld’s release date.