When Jay Pinkerton departed from Valve last year, many fans were worried that we were pretty much looking at the end of the Portal franchise, since he’s one of the key people that helped put together the nifty first-person puzzle solving series.
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But now a report from PC Gamer indicates that he’s come back to the company, leaving hopes for a potential Portal sequel back on the table again.
The site notes that Pinkerton left the company last year alongside a pair of other Valve writers, Erik Wolpaw and Chet Faliszek, for undisclosed reasons. But a recent post from Reddit user OWLverlord recently took a peek over at the Valve staff page and saw Pinkerton’s name pop back up on it, alongside his bio. You can see the listing for yourself here.
Now, the listing could easily be a mistake, but PC Gamer decided to confirm directly with Valve. And indeed, the company did note that Pinkerton returned, though didn’t disclose just what he’s working on next.
Still, this serves as a sigh of relief to many fans of the publishing studio. Pinkerton not only lent a hand on the brilliant Portal 2 but also worked on the Left 4 Dead games as one of their writers, lending his expertise into the tense scenarios that players experienced for many years. He also worked on the Team Fortress 2 comics, winning the hearts of the Valve community with that particular game as well.
It’s been a while since Valve’s announced anything new on the publishing front, though it has been making some moves behind-the-scenes to secure its future. This includes its recent acquisition of Campo Santo, the creators of the hit indie game Firewatch. But whatever it’s planning, it’s going to be big, as it also confirmed that it has several top secret games in development, as well as relaunching its website. So something is happening. But the real question is what. And, more importantly, when.
Whatever the case, Pinkerton is back on board and we’re eager to see what he does next. Say, a new Left 4 Dead sounds pretty good right now, doesn’t it, fans?
