I remember well when "The Orange Box" was released. The sun was shining, bees were buzzing around the flowers, and it made perfect sense for Valve to release what was essentially a value package of some of the best games ever. Among them, Portal was a true original, a game built around one perfect idea, squeezing every bit of juice it could out of the concept.

The announcement of "Portal 2" was a welcome surprise, especially for Valve, as it was happening with almost unprecedented speed, and incredibly, "a game that didn't need a sequel" (the title of a talk given later at GDC by some of the developers) rivaled and surpassed the original, In some ways, we got a sequel that surpassed it. The game is the most interesting co-op experience I've had on the PC, the single player campaign is so great that I'm currently reinstalling it, thinking about all the times in my life I've gotten lemons.

Then nothing happened; I got the Aperture Desk Job, and 11 years after Portal 2, any experienced Valve watcher knows the rule: Valve doesn't do 3.

YouTuber DidYouKnowGaming's new video (opens in new tab) interviews some of the key creators behind the series, and while there is a lot to unpack throughout the video, Jay, who is largely responsible for the outstanding script Pinkerton and Erik Wolpaw, is that they have a solid idea for a third: and not only that, it's a bit shop-around inside.

"I don't know, I feel like the numbering system is working against us. Because we made 'Half-Life 2' and we made '3', but it was an episode, and we had a lot of episodes in it, but we didn't have a lot of episodes in it, and we didn't have a lot of episodes in it."

Not surprisingly, Wolpaw notes that this is not intentional, but happens because Valve staff "keep getting sucked into other things. Someday hopefully there will be a 3."

OK, so what about Portal 3?

"Yeah, Jay and I have an idea, generally speaking, that we think is pretty great about what's going to happen," said Walpaugh.

"So it's great that we have this idea, but there's a lot left to do. Someone has to come up with a new portal puzzle. But I do have an actual idea.

Apparently the prospect of a third game and the idea was brought up at Valve, and there was a positive response.

"But it's one thing for us to have the idea and another to actually commit to making the game. Not unknown, but Valve doesn't even have a formal pitch process. It's always been kind of a grassroots movement."

Now, Eric Wolpaw is basically saying, "Send me an email until Gabe Newell forms a team." To be clear, he is not saying that. I'm putting words in his mouth, something like "the players should start a campaign, and I've heard that internet petitions can be really successful in making change happen". Wolpaw has not said that either.

This latest video follows another that examines the cut content of "Portal 2" and delves deeper into Valve's iterative development process, something that's interesting to me about Valve, which I often find when talking about "Portal 2." It's how seriously they take playtesting and us, the public, trying out their ideas.

In the case of Portal 2, this resulted in a lot of stuff that sounds great and no doubt many people would have liked to have seen this version of the game, but it probably didn't work out. GLaDOS, for example, was absolutely spiteful to players in its early versions (so much so that even the voice actors commented on its spitefulness), but this was not balanced with the way the game used GLaDOS as a companion in the later stages.

Interestingly, one of the solutions proposed (before making GLaDOS a bit nicer) was to have a bird fly in at the start of each segment and peck off a piece of potato, reducing GLaDOS' power for that segment and making her even smaller over time It was. The bird actually survived the final game. At least it can be seen in the sequence where GLaDOS panics her and in the scene where Wheatley fights the bird.

Another lost idea that was reused was to come across Cave Johnson's consciousness in the companion cube at one point and eventually "kill" him by solving a puzzle with the cube. Perhaps after a well-deserved reprimand. This is the setup for Aperture Desk Job. There was a Wheatley-type companion, a "Morgan Freeman" core that reflected the wisdom and serenity of Morgan Freeman in "The Shawshank Redemption". As soon as it was a few meters from "home," it completely lost the plot and could no longer cope.

So, Portal fans, it's time to start puffing on the copium in a big way. Will there be a Portal 3? Not yet. There is a solid idea and Valve seems to have the enthusiasm for it. Portal didn't need a sequel. It needed two.