Half Life and Portal Writer is Back at Valve

AlphaAtlas

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Shacknews says that Eric Wolpaw, the writer behind Half Life, Portal and Left 4 Dead, is back at Valve. Following several other high profile departures, Eric left the gaming company about 2 years ago, and many saw it as a symptom of Valve's shift away from actually developing games. Shacknews first heard about his return via an (allegedly) leaked email floating around social media websites, but they ended up finding Wolpaw's name in the Artifact credits. As they note, Valve is facing some stiff competition in the PC gaming storefront space, and some newer titles from Valve could make the Steam store more competitive.

Before our readers start confirming Half-Life 3 or Left 4 Dead 3 or Portal 3, it is important to remember that Valve recently demonstrated the ability to count to three. It may take some time for the creative juices to start flowing at the company. Valve's boss man Gabe Newell is on the record saying that "Artifact is the first of several games that are going to be coming from us. So that's sort of good news. Hooray! Valve's going to start shipping games again." Wolpaw's return along with the acquisiton of Firewatch developer Campo Santo definitely adds some credibility to Gabe's claims. It also makes sense that Valve Software is going to get back to making games as they face increasing competition in the PC digital software storefront landscape... Shout out to shirif for bringing this to our attention with his Chatty post.
 
I'd believe a new Portal or L4D....but I'd eat my shorts if they ever did another HL.
 
Artifact is apparently doing poorly, maybe that'll convince them to get make to making games that appeal to a broader audience. I'm probably just out of touch, but card games seem very niche to me.

The pessimistic side of me says that they don't need to make popular games because they can ride on the income the store makes.
 
My kids are getting into Portal and Half Life now. It would be great to let them experience one (produced by Valve) that isn't a decade old.
 
Reboot half-life? Compromise between inability to create but an audience desire to return to the series. It worked for tomb raider.
 
I'd even settle for another L4D game. It has been long enough that the first two are pretty dated now.
 
Reboot half-life? Compromise between inability to create but an audience desire to return to the series. It worked for tomb raider.
I think they need to finish the HL story since it ended on a huge cliffhanger.....
I'm not holding my breath for HL 3 though.
Probably a whole new title, they need to get back to creating games because that's where they made their bread and butter. The store is just the finical support for the development! (one can only hope)
 
Artifact is apparently doing poorly, maybe that'll convince them to get make to making games that appeal to a broader audience. I'm probably just out of touch, but card games seem very niche to me.

The pessimistic side of me says that they don't need to make popular games because they can ride on the income the store makes.
But they cost nearly nothing to develop, implement, and maintain. Yet can produce disproportionately huge revinue if they take off.
 
If any new game from Valve comes, I imagine it will just, appear one day. No hype train, no pre-release beta system.

I would love it if they just dropped Portal 3 on the world some random friday in June.
 
Well I've never played any of the HL games, but after reading all the Wiki stuff there on the plots, man I can't wait for episode 3
That'll be out soon right?
Right you guys?

:D
 
by this point i'm convinced that if we see another Hl game, it'll be some kind of vr game, to help push vr/units/sales.
 
I have wood.

If someone were to announce a new chapter in the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. franchise they would probably find me unconscious from lack of blood.

You're not the only one. Stalker is easily one of my highest replayed games in modern gaming.
 
There was a documentary where they toured Valve and talked really indepth with Gabe a few years ago. He stated pretty bluntly that no one had pitched a script to him that made since for HL3 so he'd refuse to spend any money or cycles on development until a good script was ready. I wonder if the writer had some yureka moment and popped out a feasible script. I think youd have to jump ahead a bit and reset things but I could see it. Still wouldn't preorder it. A portal 3 or L4D3 would be cool too.
 
all *3* of them?
I have no doubt they would have some kind of "Collectors" edition that you could pre-order to get all of them. In fact, I could imagine them having all sorts of weird pre-order "perks". One edition coming with a crowbar for example.
 
I have no doubt they would have some kind of "Collectors" edition that you could pre-order to get all of them. In fact, I could imagine them having all sorts of weird pre-order "perks". One edition coming with a crowbar for example.

working anti-gravity gun or they can shove the collector's edition where the sun don't shine! :D
 
Artifact is apparently doing poorly, maybe that'll convince them to get make to making games that appeal to a broader audience. I'm probably just out of touch, but card games seem very niche to me.

The pessimistic side of me says that they don't need to make popular games because they can ride on the income the store makes.

6 months ago I would agree, things have changed. Epic is snagging Unreal engine games to be exclusive to their store and have the most popular game on twitch presently. I wonder if Valve is feeling some pressure to release a killer app on their platform. :) One can hope.
 
If HL3 does come out, how many people would pre-order it?

Almost out of principle I would avoid it. Billionaire @sshole Gabe never even gave us a proper ending to HL2. We played Ep1 then in Ep 2, he leaves us in a bad spot and decides to f*ck his fan base and leave us there since Oct 2007! He Owed us the promised closure and never delivered! Gabe eat a d*ck!
 
I'd believe a new Portal or L4D....but I'd eat my shorts if they ever did another HL.

I and the rest of the forum will hold you to that.

imagine this valve releasing the 3's on us all HL3, Portal 3, L4D3, CS3, TF3, DOTA3 and ect...
 
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