Portal Writer Says He’d Like To Do Portal 3 Because He’s “Not Getting Any Younger”

Portal writer Erik Wolpaw says he’d love to make a Portal 3, but he’s only one part of the process and can’t start it on his own. He noted that the company is relatively small and almost everyone is already on a project, so assembling a team to make a hypothetical Portal 3 is difficult.

Wolpaw said on the Kiwi Talkz podcast (via VGC), “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 [Valve has] 300 employees and I don’t know exactly the breakdown–how many of them are on the production side versus Steam business side versus legal versus whatever.”

He said that means there’s an opportunity cost to taking 75 employees to go work on a project, and they’d have to leave behind whatever they’re currently working on to start Portal 3. He also said that you’d “make some money” but it won’t be “Counter-Strike: GO money.”

“But having said that, maybe every game doesn’t need to make Counter-Strike: GO money, you know, Gabe, if you’re listening,” he said. It’s worth noting that Wolpaw doesn’t work full-time at Valve, so these decisions wouldn’t be his alone.

He added, “I am not getting any younger. We are reaching the point where it’s crazy to think [that we’re] literally going to be too old to work on Portal 3, so we should just do it.”

Portal was an eccentric puzzle-FPS centered around portals, but the experience was short and experimental. Portal 2, which came out more than a decade ago, significantly expanded on the concept with new mechanics. The series is especially known for its humorous writing. No plans for Portal 3 have been announced, but Portal 2 hinted at a connection with the Half-Life series that continued to carry forward in Valve’s latest release, the VR game Half-Life Alyx.