Valve’s allergy to the quantity three continues. Whereas the need for a 3rd Portal recreation won’t be fairly as highly effective because the starvation for Half-Life 3 (and even simply Episode 3), the mind-bending puzzle sequence continues to have loads of followers wanting to see it proceed, together with Portal author Erik Wolpaw. Sadly, the chance of one other sequel stays onerous to gauge.
Wolpaw has advocated for Portal 3 earlier than (opens in new tab), hoping to encourage motion within the firm to which he returned as a part-time contractor again in 2019 after a stint at Double Effective. In December he even revealed that he had a “start line” for Portal 3 (opens in new tab), however that this did not imply Valve had dedicated to growing it. 4 months on, evidently not a lot has modified.
In an interview with Simon Parkin on the My Excellent Console podcast (opens in new tab), Wolpaw defined the difficulties in getting the sequel off the bottom. “In a flat construction like Valve, there is a chance price to doing something. No matter is happening at Valve proper now requires the dedication and participation of the individuals engaged on it—and it is voluntary.”
So there must be sufficient individuals at Valve prepared to work on Portal 3. However within the meantime, Wolpaw goes to maintain pushing for it and—jokingly—giving Valve a tough time. “The individuals who may very well be disturbed by it internally perceive that it is simply me joking round,” he added.
A supply of frustration for followers is that there have been lengthy durations of time the place Valve hasn’t seemingly been growing the rest, so why not Portal 3? Or Half-Life 3? However Wolpaw defends his employer.
“Valve isn’t a large firm. I believe individuals typically suppose it’s due to the outsized affect of Steam, however it’s probably not that many individuals. It takes manpower to maintain Dota going, it takes manpower to maintain CSGO going. And the freeform nature of Valve signifies that there are numerous experiments that merely fail. So issues are occurring—should you have been inside Valve, you’d suppose that stuff was at all times occurring, as a result of it’s.”
And Valve has clearly been busy these days, what with the launch of the Steam Deck and improvement of Counter-Strike 2 (opens in new tab). And there is Steam itself, which stays an important piece of software program Valve has ever designed or maintained.
“As a lot I benefit from the issues I labored on at Valve and my time at Valve, and it is necessary to me, if I had to decide on between Valve’s video games and Steam—which I really feel is probably the most democratising know-how that ever got here out, to permit individuals to create video games, recreation creators to really make video games and get them in entrance of individuals—I assume I might select Steam,” mentioned Wolpaw.
So there’ll at all times be issues competing for consideration at Valve. “It is a manpower downside,” mentioned Wolpaw. “You need to decide what you are going to work on and time is proscribed.”
