It’s been more than a decade since Portal 2 launched, and fans have been pining for more puzzles to solve ever since. Even key developers want to see Portal 3 happen.
That includes Eric Wolpaw, one of the three key writers behind the Portal games, who recently appeared on the Kiwi Talkz podcast. Around the 8-minute mark, Wolpaw says that while he’d love to see it, his desire isn’t enough of a pitch. “I’d work on another Portal in a second, but I can’t make it happen by myself,” he explains. “[The] problem is, with 300 employees, there’s a lot of opportunity cost to taking 75 people and trying to get a game made.” While Wolpaw “could advocate for” Portal 3, staff allocation is the main hangup.
Wolpaw co-wrote the Portal games with Jay Pinkerton and Chet Faliszek. Pinkerton left and returned to Valve, where he was a key writer on Half-Life: Alyx, one of the best VR games out there. Faliszek, meanwhile, left Valve to found Stray Bombay and lead the development of The Anacrusis, a Left 4 Dead throwback. Perhaps Faliszek’s own team could be tapped for Portal 3 at some point in the future.
In the meantime, Portal has largely been relegated to crossovers, like Bridge Constructor Portal and Fall Guys costumes. Most recently, a canceled Portal sequel was datamined from Aperture Desk Job, which launched alongside the Steam Deck.
