Erik Wolpaw, co-author of Portal series, would love to work on a third game. There are just a few issues: He’s a developer out of hundreds of employees, and he’s not sure Valve would go after another Portal the profit margin of the game.
Still, Wolpaw stated in an interview: “I’m not getting younger. We’re getting to the point where it’s crazy to think [that the original development team is] literally getting too old to work on Portal 3so we should just do it. ” Portal 2 was released in 2011 and there have been no follow-up games since.
In his interview with Kiwi TalkzWolpaw said he was still enthusiastic about the series, though the logistics are more complicated than it might seem from the player’s side:
I would work on another Portal in a second. But unfortunately I can not do it … I could go for it, but it does not help … the problem is with 300 employees … and I do not know exactly the collapse [between] production side versus steam business side versus legal … There are many opportunity costs of taking 75 people and trying to get a game made. As much as it seems that Valve is often just a bunch of people sitting and sipping gin and tonic, so does everyone.
Portal and Portal 2 is puzzle platformer known for their dark humorous dialogue. Wolpaw was the author of both of these games while working at Valve. He also wrote for other games, including Half life series, that Psychonauts games, and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. He is currently an entrepreneur not affiliated with a particular studio, although he briefly worked for Valve at Half-Life: Alyx.
CS: GO is particularly notable because it makes a lot of money, and Wolpaw used this as an example of a project that would make business sense for Valve, as opposed to Portal 3. He recognized that a successor could be profitable, but it might not be worth Valve’s resources.
“[Is Portal 3] going to make Counter-Strike GO money? Probably not, but … maybe not all games need to be made Counter-Strike: GO money. Yawn [Newell]if you listen … ”