In a move that I don't think many people could've predicted, Valve has now acquired Campo Santo, the studio behind Firewatch and the upcoming In the Valley of the Gods. While no specifics have been given just yet, I can only assume Valve is going to use them to create story-focused games that would work well in VR, a formula both Firewatch and In the Valley of the Gods already fit quite nicely.

"In Valve we found a group of folks who, to their core, feel the same way about the work that they do (this, you may be surprised to learn, doesn’t happen every day)," reads the official announcement. "In us, they found a group with unique experience and valuable, diverse perspectives. It quickly became an obvious match."

"We had a series of long conversations with the people at Valve and everyone shared the satisfaction we take in working with people whose talents dwarf our own to make things we never thought possible. Both sides spoke about our values and how, when you get right down to it, we, as human beings, are hard-limited by the time we have left when it comes to making the things we care about and believe in. They asked us if we’d all be interested in coming up to Bellevue and doing that there and we said yes."

Given Valve's 'hands off' policy when developing games, I have a feeling this is going to be a pretty darn good arrangement for Campo Santo. They'll have the freedom to pursue whatever sort of game they like, while also having nearly unlimited resources and quality developers to pull from. How exactly all of this will affect the upcoming In the Valley of the Gods, I have absolutely no idea, but it's certainly going to be interesting to see.

You can read a little bit more about this acquisition over at the Campo Santo blog.