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Portal Co-Writer Erik Wolpaw Wants Valve to Let Him Work on Portal 3: 'I'm Not Getting Any Younger'

Portal 1 & 2 co-writer Erik Wolpaw has shared his desire to begin work on Portal 3, but warns it may be tough to actually get it started at Valve.


As reported by VGC, Wolpaw appeared on the Kiwi Talkz podcast and ended his appearance by saying, "we've gotta start Portal 3. That's my message to... to whoever."


He continued to say that he isn't getting younger and that, if Valve wanted to do a Portal 3 with any of the original team members, it should greenlight the project sooner rather than later.

"I am not getting any younger," Wolpaw said. "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.”

Alongside working on the Portal franchise, Wolpaw has also written on Half-Life 2: Episode One and Two, Left 4 Dead, and Half-Life Alyx, so one would assume that he has some power in convincing Valve to act. Unfortunately, it still isn't that easy. While he admits he'd "love" to work on Portal 3, he understands he 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," Wolpaw explained.


“So there’s a lot of opportunity cost to taking 75 people and trying to get a game made," he continued. "As much as it seems 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.”

Many, including Wolpaw, agree that Portal 3 would be a moneymaker for Valve. The problem, however, is how much money it could actually make.


"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," Wolpaw said with a smile.

While fans may have to wait a long time for a Portal 3, Switch owners will be able to jump into the legendary series with the Portal: Companion Collection - which includes Portal 1 & 2 - later this year.


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Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter
@AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.

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