Portal Writer Says It's Time For 'Portal 3'

Valve is almost as infamous for the amazing games it has developed, as it is for abandoning those franchises and going all in on its online store front Steam. 

While previously promised projects such as Half-Life 3 have been all but officially cancelled, the future of many other series’ have simply been left in the dark. Nintendo recently announced the Portal: Companion Collection for Nintendo Switch, which will bring the two Portal games together on a Nintendo console for the first time. Valve has also recently moved a lot of its teams over to developing its latest portable, the Steam Deck, including a mini Portal spin-off game created intentionally to show off the handheld’s capabilities. These releases have led some to question whether Valve is indeed planning to bring their game of teleport tennis back to life.

If you want to check out Valve’s latest Portal game, Aperture Desk Job, then take a look at the trailer below.



Now in an interview with Kiwi Talks (as spotted and transcribed by VGC) writer Erik Wolpaw is eager to begin work on a third mainline game in the series. At the end of the show the host made a petition to Gabe Newell, with Wolpaw stating “We’ve gotta start Portal 3. That’s my message to… to whoever.”

Wolpaw expressed disappointment that he may reach the age where he is no longer capable of writing. Wolpaw himself left Valve to work on Psychonauts 2, but has since returned as a part-time contractor. The creator of the Portal series, Kim Swift, might be a little harder to pin down. She has long since left Valve and is currently working in publishing for Xbox Game Studios. 

“I’d work on another Portal in a second, but I can’t make it happen by myself. I could advocate for it, it might help a little bit, but the problem is, there’s a lot of opportunity cost to taking 75 people and trying to get a game made. As much as it seems like Valve [is] often just a bunch of people sitting around sipping gin and tonics by a pool, everybody’s working. So you’d almost have to take them – it’s like a revolution – stir up a bunch of people to leave what they’re currently working on and come work on something else, in this case it would be Portal 3.”

It seems the Portal 3 revolution isn’t happening quite yet, but depending on how well the latest Portal sales do, there could still be a way to get others on board.

Topics: Valve, Steam