Legendary developer who worked on Half-Life and the Steam Deck has left Valve after 27 years

Greg Coomer is a renowned video game and hardware developer who worked on multiple projects, from Half-Life and Portal to the Steam Deck. Needless to say, he has been an extremely important figure for Valve, but it seems that he left the company a few months ago.

Valve fans on Reddit recently discovered that Coomer’s personal LinkedIn account has been changed and that it now lists his job at Valve as finalized, spanning from 1997 up to 2024, which amounts to 27 years in total. What’s especially intriguing is that he stopped working at Valve in January, but he apparently just updated the profile a few days ago. So far, Coomer hasn’t said anything on the matter.

Fans immediately began speculating about his departure, with many claiming that Microsoft “poached” him in order to have him help with the development of the company’s upcoming Xbox handheld system, a theory that is mainly based on the fact that Coomer used to work for Microsoft before joining Valve. However, one of his acquaintances has come out and said that he is “retiring from gaming altogether” and that he “gracefully exited” Valve.

Half-Life, the Steam Deck, and Valve wouldn’t be the same without Greg Coomer

Regardless of the reason behind his departure, there’s no denying that this is a great loss for Valve, as Coomer’s tenure at the company was as extensive as it was important. After all, he literally helped give Valve its name, and he even worked on Prospero, one of the first projects that it unfortunately had to cancel. In a 2019 Reddit AMA, other developers revealed that Coomer still frequently talks about Prospero, so it definitely was a big deal for him.

Fortunately, Coomer also worked on every single Half-Life title as a game designer and/or art director, from the iconic first game and the excellent Half-Life 2, all the way to the recent Half-Life: Alyx. Fans of the series remember him fondly for two big reasons: His last name appears in one of the scientist’s lockers in Half-Life 1 and his face was one of several that designers used as a reference for Gordon Freeman’s model, according to the book Half-Life 2: Raising the Bar.

But Half-Life is not the only important game in Coomer’s career, since he also worked in the development of most of Valve’s great hits, like Counter-Strike, Portal, Portal 2, Left 4 Dead, and more. Lastly, he also worked on the development of the company’s handheld system, the Steam Deck, and played a significant role in its marketing, giving interviews to news outlets and sharing information about the device on his personal social media accounts. After making such a huge impact on the video game industry, Greg Coomer deserves some rest.