Who doesn’t know Kelly Bailey by now?
He did all of the sound design for Half-Life 1, music and game sounds alike. Same for Half-Life 2, Episode One and Episode Two. His face was even used for a CG model of Gordon Freeman himself.
We don’t know if he did sound design for Alien Swarm, Portal, Portal 2, TF2, L4D or L4D2, but he did part of the soundtrack for Portal alongside Mike Morasky.
Sadly, it would appear that he has left Valve.
Kelly previously had his own entry in the People section on Valve’s website, but eagle-eyed observers over on the Steam Forums have noticed that his entry appears to have mysteriously vanished.
Flamov, host of Steamcast and one of our good buddies, asked one of Valve’s employees, and got this:
1:58 PM – Flamov: http://www.valvesoftware.com/company/people.html
1:58 PM – Flamov: Is it me or is Kelly Bailey now gone from this page?
1:59 PM – Flamov:
1:59 PM – mike: He left a while ago
I hope you have your handkerchiefs ready, everyone.
Kelly appears to have left some time during the latter half of 2010. We tried contacting Valve for more details, but we have not yet received any response.
It’s a massive shame. Kelly’s music was simply amazing, and it’s hard to imagine Half-Life without his signature electro-industrial sound.
It would appear that Mike Morasky (composer for DoD:S, L4D, L4D2, TF2, and part of Portal’s soundtrack) will be his successor. His work on Portal was great (he is probably working on Portal 2 as well, especially since Bailey’s departure), and we can only hope that his work on the next Half-Life will be just as good.
We’d also love to give a shoutout to RipTen for covering this subject, thus helping more people find out, and giving us a small mention in the article! Thanks, guys.
All we can do now is look back at the good old times:
27 Responses to “Kelly Bailey No Longer at Valve”
This is a sad sad news!
Though I’d love to hear HL with a Trent Reznor + Atticus Ross soundtrack, that would really kick ass.
Fuuuu… all that are trashtalking Bailey. Half-Life Soundtrack is one of the best game soundtracks I have ever heard. Adrenaline Horror is a masterpiece, he is indeed a genius when it comes to sound effects and music.
” I wouldn’t say Kelly wasn’t doing much, however.”
Yeah, right. Kelly Wasn´t doing much. That´s why he did all those sound effects and single-handedly created all Half-Life games soundtracks. Oh! Oh! And they also used his face to create THE FACE OF GORDON FREEMAN!
Sure, Kelly wasn´t doing much, probably just sitting around, eating doughnuts, telling Gabe Newell “Get to work, fatso!”, and playing HALO sitting on a HeadCrab pillow.
Half-Life soundtracks are on the top of my gaming soundtracks list, right alongside the “UFO: Alien Invasion” game soundtrack. If you finished that game and saw the disturbing ending and listened to “that song” while those soldiers appeared on the screen, looking at you like posing for a picture, you know what I´m talking about.
I wish you Kelly bashers rot in hell. Way to go, Gabe. If I was a director, I would start filming the Half-Life movie, and guess who would be the leading actor?
So the music for HL3 is done?
(desperately optimistic)
That’s a good question.
Vortal Combat, Best music in the entire Half Life series.
Debatable.
I’m totally agreed, man. “vortal combat” was in my walkman about half a year. it’s a wonderful work!)))
Man that sucks.. I hope this is not because the next Half-Life is so damn delayed, and if so I will hate Gabe forever.
The sound track in the HL games are just amazing, damn I’m just very pissed right now.
Who else will left Valve that is a very important part for the development of Half-Life? I mean if Gabe keeps delaying it there will be little to no one of the original crew.
Delays have nothing to do with whether or not the “original crew” will remain intact.
Ohhh, it is sad day!
He did not do the sound design for any games after the OB, and he had no hand in TF2, either. That was all the “new” guy (new is in quotes because he isn’t really all that new
) doing the music and sound design.
Mike Morasky did all the sound design? No offense, but have you got any sources? I tried looking around but found very little details on that.
OK, I guess not sound design, that was a quick assumption on my part.
The rest of my info on him comes from here:
http://half-life.wikia.com/wiki/Mike_Morasky
Yes, I know that info. Thanks, though.
I’ll contact Mike Morasky and ask him.
Also, Mike Morasky did the L4D series, part of Portal alongside Kelley, and TF2.
I mentioned all of those things in the article. I don’t know if asking him whether he will be Bailey’s successor is much use, though.
He IS Baileys successor, as has been. Kelly wasn’t doing much at all at Valve.
I know that, which is why I also mentioned it in the article. I wouldn’t say Kelly wasn’t doing much, however. E-mailing Morasky is pointless anyway.
FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
+1
+ a million
http://nooooooooooooooo.com/
Why him.. How can we live with such a big talent…
We will miss you, Kelly Bailey.
I’m a big fan of Valve and all that, but the music in-game isn’t really all that special in my opinion, anyone with some skill could throw that music together if u ask me.
No, they couldn’t. Bailey’s style was incredible, it set the tone for what was going on in the game without interfering with the atmosphere. It covered numerous styles: action, horror and ambient. So, no, I don’t think “anyone with some skill could throw that music together”. It’s like saying someone who knows how to play the violin can play the guitar like Jimi Hendrix.
Kelly Baily made Half-Life Half-Life. Without his music the game would not feel the same atmosphere. Imagine the immense, black mesa concreate facility opening without vague voices, or the action packed scenes without Adrenaline Horror. Sorry mate just gota disagree with what you said, I love his music!
Sure sure, he does make good music and all that, i just said it aint special. I’ve just played several other games with alot better music than his. But perhaps it’s just a matter of personal taste, i’m more into orchestral music when it comes to games i guess. And many people did not even notice he was not involved in some of valve’s games, and that sortoff proves that his music wasn’t all that special. This is just my opinion though, offcourse.
I’d say his musical absence from Valve’s recent titles was quite noticeable.