The relationship of PC gaming giant Valve Corporation with the fans has been less than pleasant as of late, majorly due to the company being idle in video game development and focusing too much on digital distribution platform Steam and other business ventures.
This relationship has been strained further due to a lot of original employees leaving Valve including the lead writers for Half Life 2 and Portal 2. Fans interpreted the news to Valve ditching their developmental teams entirely to focus on Steam and F2P games.
But Valve later announced that fans can expect some new games from Valve in the coming years. In a related news, Portal 2 co-writer Jay Pinkerton has returned to Valve, a year after he left the company.
2017 saw an exodus of Valve writers: Erik Wolpaw and Chet Faliszek, who wrote Portal 2 alongside Pinkerton, left in February and May respectively, and Jay Pinkerton followed their path in June. According to Reddit user OWLverlord, Pinkerton is now listed on Valve’s staff page, alongside a short bio, suggesting he has returned to the company for good. PC Gamer later got a confirmation mail from Valve themselves regarding the news.
Pinkerton wrote parts of Left 4 Dead games too, as well as working on the Team Fortress comics. We surely hope that Pinkerton returning to Valve is a sign of the company returning to their roots and developing some epic games like the old days.