Chet Faliszek

Faliszek's and Wolpaw's writings led to them being hired by Valve circa 2005. Along with Wolpaw and Marc Laidlaw, Faliszek helped to create the storylines for the Half-Life and Portal series, along with having personally written the story for Left 4 Dead.[2][3] He was also involved with Valve's work in virtual reality (VR) through the HTC Vive.[4] In May 2017, Faliszek announced that after twelve years with Valve, he had left the company earlier in the year to work on unannounced projects.[4][5]

By September 2017, Faliszek had joined London-based Bossa Studios, and led Bossa's new Seattle-based studio. He was working on an unannounced cooperative game that is "trying to do something new in the narrative space using [artificial intelligence]".[6][7] In May 2018, Faliszek announced he had also joined the board of advisers for Vertigo Games, and will help support a virtual reality title they are currently developing.[8]

After about a year at Bossa, Faliszek and Bossa agreed that what Faliszek had planned was not working out, in part due to his envisioned game not being the type of product Bossa had worked on before, and Faliszek left the company early in 2019. By March 2019, he founded a new studio, Stray Bombay Company, along with Riot Games' Kimberly Voll, in essence to continue the development of the cooperative title. Faliszek had previously met Voll around 2012 while Valve was exploring the VR space, and had helped Voll get Radial Games Fantastic Contraption as a SteamVR launch title. Faliszek found Voll's focus on player interaction a key part of his idea for the cooperative game. Stray Bombay was backed financially by both Riot and Upfront Ventures.[9][10] The company's first game is The Anacrusis, which was released via early access in January 2022.[11]