When Erik Wolpaw, a writer for some of Valve's most popular and successful games, left the company in 2017 many viewed it as the end of hope for future continuations of franchises like Half-Life and Portal. Wolpaw was just the latest in a slew of departures that included Jay Pinkerton, Chet Faliszek, and the legendary Marc Laidlaw, but now, just over a year later, he is apparently back.

Over the past week, a screenshot of an email to Gabe Newell has made the rounds in which the Valve owner says, "He's back," in response to a question asking whether Erik Wolpaw had returned to Valve. While initially unverified, ValveNewsNetwork is now claiming that it was able to contact the original email sender and confirm its legitimacy. Wolpaw has yet to comment on his return to Valve at this point.

After leaving Valve, Wolpaw was working as a writer on Double Fine's sequel to Psychonauts. It's unclear if Wolpaw has finished his work on Psychonauts 2 by now or if he's able to continue working on the project contractually from within Valve.

Wolpaw's returning to Valve implies that the company is now working on something significant. It's known that Valve is working on three VR games, one of which is rumored to be a Half-Life VR game, but it's likely that Wolpaw knew about those projects before he left.

Alternatively, perhaps Valve is working on a new, unknown project of a large enough scale to pull writers back. Wolpaw's previous work at Valve includes Half-Life 2's first and second episodes, Portal, and Portal 2. Jay Pinkerton, a fellow co-writer on Portal 2, also returned to Valve so fans could read into the pair's return as a hint that they were drawn back in by a new Portal project, but that's pure speculation.

No matter what Wolpaw is working on, it's an exciting development for Valve fans. Wolpaw's work at Valve has been acknowledged as some of the best writing in games, so if he saw fit to return then there must be something special in the works.