The guy behind Steam just decided the ocean needed a serious upgrade.
Gabe Newell, co-founder of Valve and the man who basically turned PC gaming into what it is today, is pouring $300 million dollars into a 100-meter research vessel called the RV6000, a ship roughly the size of an NFL football field.
And no, this isn’t a fancy private yacht to sip cocktails on. This thing is a full-on science machine designed to dive into some of the least-explored places on the planet.
From Steam libraries to ocean depths
The project sits under Inkfish, Newell’s ocean research organization, which he’s been quietly building since 2021. The RV6000 will become the crown jewel of Inkfish’s fleet, joining the already-operational RV Dagon and RV Hydra.
But this new ship is in a completely different league: it’s built to carry up to 70 scientists on multi-month missions, deploy a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) capable of reaching 6,000 meters of depth, and support two manned submersibles simultaneously.
On board, scientists will have access to wet and dry laboratories, workshops, offices, and a mission control room with synchronized video walls to monitor multiple deep-sea operations at the same time.
The ship will also feature hybrid propulsion and anti-roll technology to keep things stable in the kind of rough seas that come with exploring the world’s most remote ocean regions. Construction is happening in Romania, with final outfitting set for Norway, and delivery is expected in the second quarter of 2028.
The best part? All the discoveries are free
Here’s where this story gets genuinely interesting. All data and findings collected during Inkfish expeditions are made available to the global research community at no cost. No paywalls, no exclusive deals, just open science.
Newell’s passion for the sea isn’t something new. He already purchased the Hadal Exploration System back in 2022, which includes the full-ocean-depth submersible now known as Bakunawa, a sub that holds records for the deepest crewed dives in all five oceans.
He also became a stakeholder in Oceanco, the Dutch shipyard known for building some of the most sophisticated vessels on the water, in August 2025.
This isn’t a bored billionaire throwing money at things for PR. Newell structures multiple scuba dives into his actual workday, the man clearly has saltwater in his veins at this point.
The RV6000 is projected to be one of the most expensive privately funded research vessels ever commissioned, which puts it in rare company. Most of the ocean floor remains unmapped and unexplored, and this ship is built specifically to change that.
Would you rather see Gabe put that $300 million into Half-Life 3, or is funding the exploration of the actual ocean floor somehow even cooler? Fight it out down in the comments , science vs. gaming, who wins?