Marc Laidlaw | |
|---|---|
 Laidlaw in 2011 | |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Language | English |
| Alma mater | University of Oregon |
| Genres | Science fiction, horror, video games |
| Website | |
| marclaidlaw | |
Marc Laidlaw is an American writer. Until 2016, he was a writer for the video game companyValve, where he worked on theHalf-Life andPortal series.
Before joining Valve, Laidlaw was a novelist working in thefantasy andhorror genres. In 1996 he won theInternational Horror Guild Award for his novelThe 37th Mandala. In 2025, Laidlaw's 1983 short story "400 Boys" was adapted as an episode of theNetflix seriesLove, Death& Robots.
Laidlaw attended theUniversity of Oregon, where he tried, and was discouraged by,punched card computer programming. He wrote short stories and his first novel,Dad's Nuke, was published in 1985. This was followed by several more novels over the next decade, while working as a legal secretary in San Francisco.[citation needed]
Laidlaw had played computer andarcade games, but was not intrigued until he playedMyst (1993). He obsessed overMyst and bought a new computer so that he could play it. He wroteThe Third Force (1996), a tie-in novel based on the world of theGadget computer game.[citation needed]
Laidlaw joined the video game companyValve while they were developing their first game, the first-person shooter (FPS)Half-Life (1998). He was hired to work on another game,Prospero, but switched whenProspero was canceled and theHalf-Life project expanded.[1]
Laidlaw said his contribution was to add "old storytelling tricks" to Valve's ambitious designs.[2] Rather than dictate narrative elements, he worked with the team to improvise ideas, and was inspired by their experiments.[2] He contributed to the "visual grammar" of thelevel design, and focused on "doing storytelling with the architecture ... The narrative had to be baked into the corridors."[1]
ForHalf-Life 2 (2004), the team developed the characterization. Laidlaw created family relationships between the characters, saying it was a "basic dramatic unit everyone understands" that was rarely used in games.[3] He also worked onHalf-Life 2: Episode One (2006) andHalf-Life 2: Episode Two (2007), plusseveral canceledHalf-Life projects, includingHalf-Life 2: Episode Three and avirtual reality game set on a time-travelling ship.[1] Laidlaw said he had intendedEpisode Three to end theHalf-Life 2story arc, at which point he would "step away from it and leave it to the next generation".[2] In 2012, Laidlaw started aTwitter account to tell a story about theHalf-Life 2 characterDr Breen. He described the story as "fan fiction", and wrote: "I personally cannot give the world aHalf-Life game. All I can personally do, at least for now, is stuff like this."[4]
Laidlaw also contributed to Valve's puzzle seriesPortal, which is set in theHalf-Life universe.[1] He disliked the crossover, feeling it "made both universes smaller", and said later: "I just had to react as gracefully as I could to the fact that it was going there without me. It didn't make any sense except from a resource-restricted point of view."[1]
Laidlaw announced his departure from Valve in January 2016. He said the primary reason for his departure was his age, and that he planned to return to writing stories.[5] He felt he was becoming a "negative force" at Valve and hampering the creative process, saying: "I think at some point you need to let the people who are the fans and the creators who've come in because of what they learned from you maybe, and let them have that. We didn't need me going, 'Well, the G-Man wouldn't do that in my day.'"[6] Laidlaw also said he had tired of the FPS genre and of solving storytelling problems in aHalf-Life-style narrative. He said he had "always hoped that we'd stumble into a more expansive vocabulary or grammar for storytelling within the FPS medium, one that would let you do more than shoot or push buttons, or push crates".[1]
On August 25, 2017, Laidlaw published a short story titled "Epistle 3", describing it as "a snapshot of a dream I had many years ago". Journalists interpreted it as a summary of what could have been the plot forHalf-Life 2: Episode Three, though Laidlaw later denied this.[1][7] In 2023, Laidlaw said he regretted publishing the story. He said he had been "deranged" and "completely out of touch" at the time, and that it had created problems for his former colleagues at Valve.[1] Valve released a new game,Half-Life: Alyx, in 2020. As of 2023, Laidlaw had not played it and said: "I don't ever need to see another Combine soldier again, not even in VR."[1] He said he would not be interested in returning for futureHalf-Life games, but remained open to working on games with other studios.[6]
In 2018, Laidlaw completed a new novel,Underneath the Oversea, but could not find a publisher and self-published it onKindle. He said the publishing world had "forgotten who he was" and that his age prevented publishers from building a new audience.[1] In 2025, Laidlaw's short story "400 Boys", published in 1983, was adapted as an episode of theNetflix seriesLove, Death& Robots.[6] Laidlaw was not involved in the production, and said "it just was fun to sit back and not have to be involved in the trenches on something for once".[6]
In 2003, Laidlaw said his favorite games included theLegend of Zelda series,Animal Crossing,Um Jammer Lammy,Castlevania: Symphony of the Night,Ico,Fatal Frame andThief: The Dark Project.[8] After leaving Valve, Laidlaw moved toKauai, Hawaii.[1] He moved to Los Angeles in 2020.[6] He has anamateur radio license and hiscall sign is WH6FXC.[9] Laidlaw also writes and records music.[5]
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| Title | Year | First published | Reprinted/collected | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| "Tissue" | 1980 | Laidlaw, Marc (July 1980). "Tissue".New Terrors. edited byRamsey Campbell, 1980 | ||
| "400 Boys" | 1983 | Laidlaw, Marc (November 1983). "400 Boys".Omni. | Bruce Sterling,Mirrorshades: The Cyberpunk Anthology, 1986 | |
| "Dankden" | 1995 | Laidlaw, Marc (October–November 1995). "Dankden".F&SF. | The Bard Gorlen series | |
| "The Perfect Wave" | 2008 | Rucker, Rudy & Marc Laidlaw (January 2008). "The Perfect Wave".Asimov's Science Fiction. | ||
| "Songwood" | 2010 | Laidlaw, Marc (January–February 2010). "Songwood".F&SF. Vol. 118, no. 1&2. pp. 82–97. | The Bard Gorlen series | |
| "Watergirl" | 2015 | Rucker, Rudy & Marc Laidlaw (January 2015). "Watergirl".Asimov's Science Fiction. Vol. 39, no. 1. pp. 22–40. |
| Year | Title |
|---|---|
| 1998 | Half-Life |
| 2004 | Half-Life 2 |
| 2006 | Half-Life 2: Episode One |
| 2007 | Half-Life 2: Episode Two |
| 2013 | Dota 2 |
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