Portal 2 co-writer Jay Pinkerton returns to Valve (Updated)

Update: A Valve representative has confirmed via email that Portal 2 co-writer Jay Pinkerton has returned to the company. Read the original story below for more details.

Original story:

Portal 2 co-writer Jay Pinkerton appears to have returned to Valve, a year after he left the company.

2017 saw an exodus of Valve writers: Erik Wolpaw and Chet Faliszek, who wrote Portal 2 alongside Pinkerton, left in February and May respectively, and Pinkerton followed suit in June.

However, as spotted by Reddit user OWLverlord, Pinkerton is now listed on Valve's staff page, alongside a short bio, suggesting he has returned to the company for good.

As well as Portal 2, Pinkerton wrote parts of Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2, as well as a lot of the ancillary stuff surrounding Valve's games, such as the TF2 comics.

As much as I'd love to see him pen the TF2 comic #7—something he is open to—I presume he'll be put to work on some of the new games Valve is working on.

TOPICS

Samuel is a freelance journalist and editor who first wrote for PC Gamer nearly a decade ago. Since then he's had stints as a VR specialist, mouse reviewer, and previewer of promising indie games, and is now regularly writing about Fortnite. What he loves most is longer form, interview-led reporting, whether that's Ken Levine on the one phone call that saved his studio, Tim Schafer on a milkman joke that inspired Psychonauts' best level, or historians on what Anno 1800 gets wrong about colonialism. He's based in London.