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Jay Pinkerton, co-writer of Portal 2, has returned to the fray by rejoining Valve just over a year since leaving the company.

The veteran comedy writer, whose pre-gaming stints included the likes of Cracked.com and National Lampoon, is currently listed on Valve’s staff pages under the ‘other experts’ heading. It never pays to assume, but it wouldn’t be too outlandish to think a writer may have been re-hired as just that.

Pinkerton all but disappeared from the spotlight following his departure from Valve in June 2017, with nothing of real note heard about him until his name was spotted back on the staff list on Valve’s site. The listing was soon after confirmed as accurate in an email to PC Gamer.

As well as his contribution to the award-winning Portal 2 writing team, Pinkerton also worked on the likes of the Left 4 Dead series and a series of comics based on Team Fortress 2.

After losing Chet Faliszek, Erik Wolpaw and Marc Laidlaw over the past couple of years, it’s fair to say expectations around Valve’s gaming output dropped significantly. The re-hiring of Pinkerton, however, could be linked to Valve chief Gabe Newell’s comments earlier in the year (and early in 2017) that the studio is making headway in developing brand new games.

The returning writer re-joins a multibillion pound company, now with the development talents of Campo Santo under its wing. While there’s little specifically forthcoming from Valve about its gaming output, the signs are looking like they’re shifting more towards development, after the company cemented itself at the top of the foodchain for digital distribution – and pretty high in the pecking order for virtual reality.