Half-Life 3 is simply the recent unique Valve must propel SteamOS previous Home windows – Digital Digest

And let’s not neglect that thousands and thousands of players have already got easy accessibility to SteamOS via Steam Deck {hardware}. These ageing Steam Decks won’t be highly effective sufficient to run a recreation like Half-Life 3 at most graphics settings, however Valve video games have a historical past of cutting down nicely on low-end methods.

Valve’s leaked “Powered by SteamOS” initiative additionally appears poised to let third-party {hardware} makers soar in with extra highly effective (and extra Half-Life 3-succesful) desktops, laptops, and handhelds with SteamOS pre-installed. And that is earlier than we even take into account the potential impression of a extra highly effective “Steam Deck 2,” which Valve’s Pierre-Loup  Griffais stated in 2023 might probably are available in “the following couple of years.”

Time for a daring transfer

Tying a serious recreation like Half-Life 3 to a totally new and largely untested working system would certainly result in some deafening pushback from players proud of the Home windows-based established order. An unique launch is also dangerous if SteamOS finally ends up displaying some technical issues because it tries to develop previous its Steam Deck roots (Linux does not precisely have the perfect monitor report in terms of issues like recreation driver compatibility throughout totally different {hardware}).

Regardless of all that, we’re fairly assured that the overwhelming majority of gamers interested by Half-Life 3 would soar via a number of OS-related hoops to get entry to the sport. And lots of of these gamers would seemingly follow Valve’s gaming-optimized OS going ahead moderately than spending cash on one other Home windows license.

Even a timed exclusivity window for Half-Life 3 on SteamOS might push a whole lot of early adopters to see what all of the fuss is about with out excluding those that refuse to change away from Home windows. Failing even that, perhaps a non-exclusive Half-Life 3 could possibly be included as a pre-installed freebie with future variations of SteamOS, as an incentive for the curious to check out a brand new working system.

With the approaching broad launch of SteamOS, Valve has a uncommon alternative to upend the PC gaming OS dominance that Microsoft roughly stumbled into many years in the past. A recreation like Half-Life 3 could possibly be simply the carrot wanted to get PC gaming as an entire over its longstanding Home windows dependence.