The vault of cancelled Valve projects is notorious, from the Artifact card game that got a public beta to the elusive Ricochet 2. But one long-lost title has suddenly returned to the light: Stars of Blood. The concept art for the ambitious space game has reignited interest in the Half-Life studio’s vast, unrealized potential.
Several of the concept arts, shared on the Half-Life subreddit, showcased designs that are radically different than the popular sci-fi FPS. It shows sprawling futuristic megacities, spaceships, and exotic aliens straight from speculative evolution books like Man After Man.
“The Stars of Blood art is too good to not make into a game,” replied derickbobson disappointed on the subreddit.
“Games aren’t released at valve, they escape,” quipped SnooCompliments8967, referring to how often the company quietly shelved projects.
“I hope this is something they’ll revisit in the future,” added 2Dmenace hopeful. “Something about Stars of Blood reminded me a lot of Jorodowsky’s The Incal, or Metabarons.”
“And see Valve in 10 years will say shit like ‘Oh it was Half-Life 3 concept art’,” joked Akil29.
For context, Stars of Blood reportedly dates back to around 2010, developed internally on Valve’s original Source engine. Most of the art was done by Peter Konig, and rumors said that the project was worked on under a team led by ex-Valve developer Ken Birdwell.
However, it was scrapped before it ever reached playable form, as confirmed by Gabe Newell in 2012. One of the few cancelled Valve games that Gaben himself openly acknowledged, he described it simply as a ‘space pirate game.’
Nevertheless, what makes Stars of Blood resurfacing interesting is not that it fuels speculation. But that it arrives while Half-Life 3 rumors are heating up. Over the past several months, fans have been picking apart every comment and backend updates on Steam. Anything that might suggest the legendary FPS is making a comeback. From the obsessive compilation of mentions of ‘HLX’ codename to calculating Gaben’s superyacht, the Rocinante, route near gaming event locations.
You can see more of what could’ve been on Valvearchive.com. While Stars of Blood likely has zero connection to Half-Life, the community’s reaction shows just how desperate players are for any new project from the studio.
