In a podcast interview with Geoff Keighley, Gabe Newell shared a brief insight into how Valve will be approaching game development in the future.

When asked how Valve intends to tackle the changing ways of storytelling in games, and finding new ways to use their characters and stories, Newell said, "I think, obviously people want to see…you know, if somebody likes Team Fortress, they like to see what we can do with Team Fortress, or Left 4 Dead, or Half Life, or everything. And so, what we are trying to do is come up with ways so that we are both…you know, we love all those games, we love all those characters, and universes, and storylines. And we have no shortage of opportunities, so we try to be a little bit strategic instead of like, okay, this is the piece of the puzzle that we can solve with this set of technologies that we have developed and this is the new piece of technology that we think is going to be generally useful…so this ties up well with this property.

"If you think of it, each one of our franchises represents our tool, and you just want to pick up the right tool at the right time. So Dota 2 is incredibly character rich, I mean there are like a 110 characters, so if you have problem that involves wanting to work on the aspect of having lots and lots of those strongly realized characteristics, then Dota 2 is the right place to do it.

"So, when we are thinking of the next challenges then we tend to pick the franchises that are most useful in going forward. And if we don’t have one, then obviously we have to create a new one. But you know, I get it, I'm a fan of TV shows, I'm a fan of writers, I'm a fan of movies, I'm a fan of games and I certainly understand why people are like, you know, hey I remember this awesome experience and I'm starting to get worried that I'm never going to have it again. I am fan of Terry Pratchett and he has Alzheimer’s, it’s like, Oh my god, I may never get another great discworld novel.

"So we understand it and we feel that, and we think at the end of the day, customers are going to be really happy with where we spent our time and how we have turned that into entertainment for them.

"But we are also going to build on what we learned, and we have learned a lot. We aren’t going to go all retro because there are too many interesting things that have been learned. The only reason we would go back and do a ‘super classic’ kind of product is if a whole bunch of people internally at Valve said they wanted to do it, and had a reasonable explanation for why it was. But, you know, if you wanted to do another Half Life game and you want to ignore everything we have learned in shipping Portal 2, and in shipping all the updates on the multiplayer side, that seems like a bad choice. So we will keep moving forward but that doesn’t necessarily always mean what people are worried that it mean. "

While Newell doesn't outright say it, it is pretty clear that whatever game Valve makes next, be it Half Life 3 or something else, multiplayer will be a strong aspect of it. Portal 2 had a fully-fledge co-op campaign, and with recent success with Team Fortress 2 and Dota 2, it seems unlikely that Valve will ignore that for a standard experience.

What do you think Valve's new approach? Let us know in the comments below. In the meanwhile, do listen to the entire podcast where Newell and Erik Johnson speaks about Steam, VR, and where Newell stores his chocolate chip cookie recipes.