In a recent blogpost Campo Santo, developers behind the popular story-driven experience Firewatch and upcoming In the Valley of the Gods (which is now a Valve game) have reported they have joined with Valve to continue working on their current title.

“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). In us, they found a group with unique experience and valuable, diverse perspectives. It quickly became an obvious match.”

It’s unclear whether this means their team will be expanded or if it just means safety from bankruptcy but either way it’s an incredible match; they continued:

“Second, while visiting IGN’s headquarters in early 2015 to talk about Firewatch, we came across an undelivered 2011 Game of the Year Award for Portal 2. It happened to be engraved on an unopened bottle of champagne. Never ones to pass up free alcohol, we stole it and drank it to celebrate the launch of Firewatch a year later. So in some sense, this is a return home for us. Well, for that bottle of champagne.

Third, and last, 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.”

Firewatch was a commercial hit, elevating the small San Francisco team into the spotlight, giving them the motivation to work on their second project, In the Valley of the Gods which (as stated above) is now published under Valve. For those who are unaware, Valve is the creator of Steam; the behemoth video game marketplace but before their trading gig they made popular titles such as Left 4 Dead and Half-Life which went on to spawn many mods including Counter-Strike and Garry’s Mod. It’s no doubt this partnership will be beneficial for both parties who (according to Campo Santo) get on like peas in a pod.

This isn’t the first acquisition; in 2010, Valve bought Turtle Rock Studios (renamed Valve South) which inevitably failed and then in 2012 acquired Star Filled Studios in an attempt to start operations in San Francisco but found no value from it. What do you think? Is this going to kill the studio or help them prosper? Let me know in the comments.