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Co-writer on Portal and Portal 2, Erik Wolpaw, says that he would love to work on Portal 3, but there are some hurdles at Valve to overcome.
Wolpaw recently appeared in the Kiwi Talkz podcast (embedded below). Near the end of the interview, Wolpaw says, "we've gotta start Portal 3. That's my message to... to whoever." He continues on to say that he isn't getting any younger and that if Valve wants to do Portal 3 with any of the original team members, they need to give the go-ahead sooner rather than later.
"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."
"I’d work on another Portal in a second, but I can’t make it happen by myself.
"Oh, 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.
“So there’s a lot of opportunity cost to taking 75 people and trying to get a game made. As much as it seem like Valve often [is] just a bunch of people sitting around sipping gin and tonics by a pool, everybody’s working.
“They’re working all the time, it’s just you don’t always see the [result], it doesn’t always end up coming out, or it comes out years later, it gets turned into something else. So everybody is accounted for, I guess is what I’m saying. People are all doing something.
“So you’d almost have to take them – it’s like a revolution – [and] 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."
"Oh, 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.
“So there’s a lot of opportunity cost to taking 75 people and trying to get a game made. As much as it seem like Valve often [is] just a bunch of people sitting around sipping gin and tonics by a pool, everybody’s working.
“They’re working all the time, it’s just you don’t always see the [result], it doesn’t always end up coming out, or it comes out years later, it gets turned into something else. So everybody is accounted for, I guess is what I’m saying. People are all doing something.
“So you’d almost have to take them – it’s like a revolution – [and] 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."
"The problem is, you would make money, but what kind of money will you make? Are you gonna make Counter-Strike: GO money? Probably not.
“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 with a smile.
“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 with a smile.
Portal and Portal 2 will see some new life later this year with the Switch release of Portal: Companion Collection.
(Thanks to VGC for the transcription)
