When Crawl studio Powerhoof posted the above image of Gabe Newell's appearance in its rogue-like dungeon crawler, everyone was thoroughly amused. There was one problem though: what if Newell didn't want to be there? What if he wasn't happy with his outfit? 

Well it turns out Valve has approved Newell's likeness, so when he isn't running the world's biggest digital storefront for games and not releasing Half-Life 3, he'll be a playable character in Crawl. Once the next Crawl update is rolled out, all you have to do is use the name 'HL3' when you loadout, and Gabe will appear as one of the monsters.

The studio confirmed the news on Twitter.

@Powerhoof short sweet email from Valve today giving the go ahead for this silly thing :) turns out Valve are cool- who knew?

— Powerhoof (@Powerhoof) April 9, 2015

Crawl is currently in Early Access and doing pretty well. Our own Tom Marks said it is "an incredibly fun and unique experience" in his Early Access review.

Valve's boss and the Lord of All PC, or something, Gabe Newell is a large boss character in multiplayer dungeon-'em-up Crawl.

A hypnotic gif of Gaben was posted over on developer Powerhoof's site. Seriously, I can't stop watching it.

The best bit is, of course, the fact that when he powers up he grows a beard and pulls his knives out. Oh, Gaben.

It's not an April Fool's day thing, as developer Barney Cumming pointed out in the comments section, and he's aiming for the new boss to be introduced in the next update - though there's no timeframe on when that will hit right now.

We had a look at Crawl when it was in an even earlier state some months ago, but even then it was great fun.