Marc Laidlaw

Marc Laidlaw is a novelist and a video games scriptwriter best-known in the video game industry for his work with Valve.

Career

Laidlaw has been writing novels and short stories long before he started working in the game industry. Most of his works are in science fiction and horror genre. He worked with game developers for some but became invested in video games after playing 1993 cult adventure game Myst. Laidlaw joined Valve in 1998, when company’s debut project, Half-Life, was in development. He not only wrote the script for the game but also took part in the level design. The game became a major success a received widespread critical acclaim. Most of the game’s aspects were praised, including its story and writing. He later participated in the development of three expansion for the game (Half-Life: Opposing Force, Half-Life: Blue Shift, Half-Life: Decay) and its sequel, Half-Life 2 which also became a successful hit partially due to its story.