'Half-Life 2,' 'Portal,' 'Left 4 Dead' Writer Leaves Valve
Valve has no more "Half-Life" primary writers left.
After 12 years, Chet Faliszek, writer of "Half-Life 2: Episode One" and "Half-Life 2: Episode Two," among many other critically acclaimed games, has officially left Valve.
Faliszek has confirmed the news exclusively to GameIndustry.biz, and mentioned that his departure from the company was "nothing exciting or drama filled."
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"I worked there 12 years, shipped a bunch of great games and some amazing hardware and wanted to change things up," he wrote in a statement regarding his departure. "There's no news on what's next etc., I will let you know when that happens," he added.
During his stint at Valve, Faliszek contributed to the writing of some of the studio's most celebrated game titles. Aside from "Half-Life 2," he also had a hand in the writing of "Portal" and "Portal 2," and even "Left 4 Dead," and "Left 4 Dead 2."
More recently, he had spearheaded the developer relations for Vive, the virtual reality (VR) headset the game studio produced in partnership with HTC.
Faliszek's departure means that the main writers on the "Half-Life" series are no longer at Valve. Only in February, Eric Wolpaw exited the game studio. He also worked on "Half-Life 2: Episode One" and "Episode Two," "Portal," and two "Left 4 Dead" games. In 2016, Marc Laidlaw, the primary writer for "Half-Life" and "Half-Life 2," also left Valve.
Valve has been dominating the digital distribution service on the PC because of Steam, but many fans still associate the company with its successful game franchises like "Portal" and "Half-Life." Many gamers have been holding out hope that "Half-Life 3" will be announced and launched in the near future, but given Faliszek's announcement of leaving the company, that dream has become more elusive than ever.
At present, nothing much has been happening in Valve's software side while the company continues to grow its virtual reality business and focusing on their moneymaking digital distribution platform, Steam.
