dangerous mute lunatic

When Valve originally shipped the Orange Box (which contained Half Life 2: Episode 2, Team Fortress 2, and Portal) in 2007, they were expecting for Portal to do well, but I don’t think they expected it to become as popular as it did. And it definitely wasn’t supposed to have a sequel. 

Prior to Portal’s success, yet after HL2:E2 was released, Valve was probably already working on Episode 3. They might have even gotten pretty deep into the story and the creation process. But then Portal exploded.

They most likely realized that they suddenly had this huge undertaking on their hands. People were in love with Portal and wanted more. And sure, it would be a tough challenge, but their whole philosophy is give the customer what they want (although, never when they want). 

But here’s the problem: Portal and Half-Life exist in the same universe. None of Valve’s other games have this aspect. Thus, if Valve were to create a new Half-Life game and then somewhere along the road create a new Portal game (or vice-versa), they would have to make sure the two games’ histories corresponded correctly.  

Especially when it comes to the Borealis ship. This ship that is supposedly the focus of the next upcoming Half-Life game. And it was supposed to be made by Black Mesa’s tiny little competitor Aperture Science. But now Aperture has its very own storyline and fan base thanks to Portal. 

So now this tiny little meaningless piece of the Borealis’ history is now huge. Okay. Well, they have to write it into the storyline. Okay. And it has to correspond with Portal’s storyline too. Oookayy…

And so, all this story isn’t going to fit into an episode, and thus, hopefully, Valve is currently hard at work writing Half Life 3! 

Does this make any sense? lol