Erik Wolpaw, a writer in the video game industry and perhaps best known for the Portal franchise, says that “we’ve gotta start Portal 3.”
Wolpaw appeared recently on the Kiwi Talkz podcast and discussed his entire body of work. Ranging from Half-Life, Psychonauts, Left 4 Dead, and Artifact, Wolpaw has had a lasting legacy in gaming. When it comes to possibly working on Portal 3, Wolpaw says that “he’d work on another Portal, in a second, but I can’t do it unfortunately by myself…I can’t make it happen by myself.”
While he’s able to advocate for a new entry in the franchise from Valve, convincing the company is a lot harder than it sounds. “As much as it seems like Valve often…there’s a bunch of people sitting around sipping on Gin and Tonics by a pool, everybody’s working.” What Wolpaw says makes sense; while Valve doesn’t release games every day, there are a lot of projects the company is working on that never see the light of day.
Host Reece Reilly agrees, saying that the game will undoubtedly be a moneymaker for Valve. Wolpaw agrees but also concedes that Portal 3 would never make “Counter-Strike GO money.”
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is one of several games developed by Valve that has seen sustained success. Alongside CS: GO, Dota 2 and Team Fortress 2 often appear at the top of the list of current players for Steam games.
After discussing Portal 3, Wolpaw and Reilly talk about why developing video games is so difficult. They touch on the troubled development of Portal 2, which was in danger of becoming one of the countless Valve projects that fall apart.
The entire episode runs a little over an hour and is worth listening to beyond the Portal 3 tease. Maybe one day we’ll get that Portal sequel. Or Left 4 Dead 3. Or wrap up Half-Life 2.
