Valve may have moved well beyond its original Half Life games at this point, focusing its efforts on its other titles like DotA 2, CS:GO, and Artifact, and pushing forward its storefront and hardware developments like VR -- but there is hope for the Half Life 3 holdouts. In a surprise move, Valve has rehired previous exile, Erik Wolpaw, whose biggest claim to fame is writing for both of the Half Life 2 episodes, Portal, Portal 2, and Left 4 Dead.
PCGamesN has rounded up a few sources which confirm the move, including finding an email from Valve CEO, Gabe Newell, confirming the rehire. It seems like Wolpaw has become part of the Artifact team, so it may be that he isn't working on new Half Life content — it's most likely in fact — but it's still exciting news for anyone still holding out hopes for more games in the near-two-decade-old franchise.
Wolpaw originally left Valve in February 2017 and was soon followed by other Half Life writers and creators, like Marc Laidlaw, Chet Faliszek, and Jay Pinkerton. However, Valve has managed to slowly trickle back some of these employees, bringing back together some of the original Half Life and Half Life 2 developers.
What these writers and developers are working on is anyone's guess, but Valve has said it plans a number of new games in the years to come.
What do you think is coming after Artifact?
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