Writer of stories Half-Life games leaves Valve

Marc Laidlaw, employed by Valve since 1997, has left the company. Laidlaw wrote the story of Half-Life, Half-Life 2 and expansions Episode 1 and Episode 2. He plans to focus on writing for media other than games.

“I am no longer a permanent employee or freelancer at Valve, no longer involved in day-to-day decisions, no longer a mouthpiece for the company, no longer aware of confidential information and no longer work on the games that Valve makes,” he said. Laidlaw in an email to a fan. The writer indicates in the same email that he left the studio for various, largely personal reasons. “An obvious reason is that I am old or at least starting to get old. When I started at Valve in 1997 my nickname was ‘old man Laidlaw’. The young level designer who gave me that name at the time is now older than I was at the time.”

Furthermore, Laidlaw indicates that he has “lately felt the need to leave the chaos of making a game behind me and return to writing projects that come from within myself.” That is also what Laidlaw sees itself doing in the near future; writing for media other than games.

Marc Laidlaw was hired by Valve in 1997, which had just been around for a year, and was working on the game that would hit the market in 1998 as Half-Life. As a writer, Laidlaw was responsible for the game’s story and dialogue. He would remain so for all parts of the series. He also wrote the story for Half-Life 2 and the expansions Episode 1 and Episode 2. Whether Laidlaw also wrote a story for Episode 3, which was once promised by Valve but never appeared, is unclear. The status of successor Half-Life 3 is also unclear. In the email exchange in which Laidlaw announces his resignation, he does not want to go into the status of that game.

Valve employs two more writers, Chet Faliszek and Erik Wolpaw. They are responsible for the story and dialogues of the Portal series. Wolpaw was in the news earlier this week because he received permission from Valve to write the story for the new Psychonauts 2, which is being produced by developer Double Fine, in addition to his work for Valve.