Portal 3 Speculation

With VAL Ve having given a few details that might point to a Portal 3 (mentioning they can't talk about the Mantis Men due to their being involved in a sequel, Stephen Merchant saying he wants to reprise his role as Wheatley, ect.) Perhaps speculation on what might happen could be a good discussion topic?

COMPLETELY BASELESS SPECULATION TIME!

The game would begin with Wheatley crash landing on the shed that Chell exited from, he is retrieved by the Party Escort Bot and placed back on his rail, however the landing severely damaged him. Wheatley's memory banks were nearly destroyed and he can't remember anything except that he did "something bad" and has to apologize to "a test subject". He goes off to find a test subject to apologize to and ends up waking the game's protagonist: Doug Rattmann.

Unlike Chell, Rattmann is fully voiced. VAL Ve said they kept Chell silent for humor purposes, since the A.I.s talking was inherently funnier, but with Rattmann's paranoia it would take the humor in a new direction and would center more on his crazed conversations with the robots.

Rattman is severely injured from getting shot before going into stasis so he and Wheatley try to reach the Aperture Science Medical Area For Test Subjects Not Injured Enough to Euthanize. Along the way they are discovered by G La DOS, who recognizing Doug as one of the scientists, is furious and "fixes him up" so that he can test, only these test chambers are even worse than the ones from Portal 1 and 2, they have dangers not normally seen outside of the cooperative testing initiative.

After several test chambers Rattmann notices a malfunctioning panel and begins his quest to escape. G La DOS sends the co-op bots after him, leading to a sort of "portal battle" type puzzle. He ends up encountering Wheatley again, who says that it seems the damage he received from impact was worse than he thought and has only a few hours before he suffers a critical systems failure. Rattmann says that he might be able to fix Wheatley if he can show to the old master control room, from before G La DOS came online, which also conveniently has an escape elevator.

Even if he wasn't malfunctioning, Wheatley would still have no idea where that is, but says that he saw some other personality cores who might know to reach them however he has to go back through the testing track.

Knowing that its probably the only way to escape, Rattmann agrees and re-enters the test chambers. G La DOS pretends to 'reward' him by giving Doug back his companion cube only to then fill the room with deadly neurotoxin and state that the only way to stop the emitters is to euthanize the cube. Due to his schizophrenia the cube actually talks (and does threaten to stab him) but Doug has no choice but to kill it (with a disintegration ray, not incinerator to escape from this time). This utterly breaks Rattmann's spirit and he just accepts his fate and keeps testing.

G La DOS isn't happy testing the complacent Rattmann and tries various ways to incite him but nothing seems to work, until she mentions Chell. She says that she knows Chell was more than just the test subject he used to kill her, and implies that Chell is dead. This finally breaks Rattmann out of his stupor and he begins planing his escape and defeating G La DOS once and for all...

That's all I have for now, but of course there would be more.

Silly IHOP, don't you know that Valve can't count to three?

I'm pretty sure Stephen Merchant said he didn't want to reprise his role as Wheatley because it was too tiring. Not sure how that works, since he was just sitting in a room for a few days talking.

From what I understand, voice acting is incredibly exhausting. Plus, he did a lot of improv with his role, so that would take it out of you as well.

And you wouldn't sit. You'd stand — it's bad for the diaphram to sit, and you need to communicate all your emotions with vocal inflection alone, meaning that you need as much breath as possible.

edited 24th Aug '11 8:54:17 AM by Nicknacks

Ha. Ha ha. That was a funny joke

Hmm, someone already made the "Valve can't count to three" joke, but I think I'll repeat it: Valve cannot count to three and will never release a game with the number 3 in its title.

edited 24th Aug '11 3:12:44 PM by Zennistrad

Pffft, that's an easy fix. Portal 4, Half Life Episode 4, Half Life 4, Team Fortress 4...

Don't let the total lack of a digit dissuade you from moving on, Valve, make the mental leap to four.

Portal 3 will come out in relation to the time that Half Life 3 came out..

So, when Half Life 3 comes out, I'll have the numbers for when Portal 3 will be out.

I'm thinking that Episode 3 might be the unofficial Portal 3. (gentlemen, please hold your "can't count to 3" jokes)

From what we know, Episode 3 takes place at the Borealis, a disappeared ship that had belonged to Aperture Science. The story revolves around the Combine finding a lost piece of technology in the shipwreck, something so crucial that humanity could not allow it to fall into their hands.

I'm guessing that Episode 3 might be a point where the storylines of Portal and Half-Life meet. There might possibly be elements from Portal in the game, including a Portal Gun and puzzles that utilize Portals and the Mobility Gels (Repulsion and Propulsion Gel).

I might be wrong, though. Only time will tell.

Episode 3 doesn't exist. It's the Duke Nukem Forever of the current generation. Stop believing in it, and maybe Valve will be nice and release Half Life 3.

I'm sure Episode 3 will get here. The devs are just so dedicated to realism that they're working from inside a singularity. One day in several subjective millennia I expect it to be released as Hawking Radiation for anything with a screen.

edited 3rd Apr '12 7:19:57 AM by UltimatelySubjective

A little over 4 years is nothing. TF 2 took 9. This isn't DNF yet, it hasn't even taken half as long.

I like the idea of the franchises merging.

edited 3rd Apr '12 7:38:45 AM by hnd03

Word of God says that the Portal and Half-Life franchises won't be merged; their stories and tone are too different. Valve also officially stated that they were cancelling Half-Life 2: Episode 3 in favor of Half-Life 3, with no word on a release date.

I do have to wonder what they're thinking, with two of their most creatively popular franchises lingering in what appears to be complete developer apathy.

Most of the other information about a potential Portal 3 comes mainly from the tidbits they dropped around the development of Portal 2: namely, that they were originally considering employing a new core game mechanic as well as taking us away from the GLaDOS/Chell story line, but customer demands forced them to revisit the plot of the original game. Since the ending of 2 plausibly wraps up that story, I have no doubt that if a third game does happen, it'll introduce entirely new characters.

Further speculation seems pointless, which is why I cordially detest this sort of thread.

edited 3rd Apr '12 8:01:12 AM by Fighteer

A little over four years after the original scheduled release date (Not announcement, mind you) with no information is nothing? There is no hint that Episode 3 even exists.

For comparison, Portal 2 had a story outline (Which was actually pretty close to the final one, albeit with Cave Johnson replaced with Wheatley) by 2 years after Portal's release. Portal 2 was a full game. Even freaking Duke Nukem Forever had more info about it.

edited 3rd Apr '12 8:11:53 AM by Scardoll

Where did Valve officially stated that they canceled Episode 3 in favor of HL 3? I think it's certainly possible, but I don't remember hearing about this.

They haven't said anything official about cancelling Episode 3, it's all speculation. It would make sense to just go ahead with Half-Life 3 after all this time, though.

Portal 3 would be nice, but I want a new Half-Life game already.

The problem with Valve making Half-Life 3 is that the incredibly long hiatus will ensure the game will never live up to the hype, no matter how incredibly awesome it is.

I swear I saw something about Episode 3 being cancelled. I have no idea how I'd find it now, though.

Only if you buy into the hype yourself and raise your expectations too high. Plus, It took a pretty long time for Half-Life 2 to be released as well, and it lived up to the hype, IMO.

So, the lesser of two necros. First, SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY, P DOWN. I particularly think the environmental portals are a good idea. It would make sense that stationary portals would have been developed before a portable emitter, and the size would be arbitrary, especially if the power source doesn't have to be mobile. New mechanics seem a bit heavy on gels though.

Second, assuming the end of Portal 2 really puts Chell on the actual surface, I think Portal 3 2 Episode 1: Chell's Collection of Fancy Hats ought to push the Half-Life integration much further than anything Valve will admit to. Perhaps Chell meets a human resistance cell, and returns to Aperture to retrieve useful technology, accidentally getting caught up in a testing track. Possibly headcrab zombies have infested a set of tests, and you need to place turrets to take them out. Maybe the villain is an AI that's been hacked by the Combine.

I highly doubt it would work, but it would be interesting to explore the possibility of Half-Life 3 and Portal 3 being the exact same game, with chapters alternating the Player Character. I admit aside from the disorientation of switching between Gordon and Chell, the tone dissonance is a serious problem.

Maybe there could be a minor spinoff title with 2-player cooperative play between Gordon and Chell on the Borealis?

edited 11th Sep '12 1:18:56 AM by TParadox

What is up with Valve and 3's anyway? Do they just think that all the third acts in a trilogy are crap, and they don't want to stain their franchises?

Or maybe they really don't know what comes after 2.

Learning to Count With Valve:

Valve: "Repeat after us children. 1, 2, ......uh..........um.......4."

edited 11th Sep '12 2:04:09 AM by LDragon2

Gabe Newell went to a hypnotist's show and was one of the volunteers. The hypnotist planted the hypnotic suggestion that the number three doesn't exist, but forgot to remove it.

Most plausible explanation so far.

Guys, Valve can count to three. Counter Strike Global Offensive is the third Counter Strike.

I would imagine another Portal game would be about the ending of the multiplayer campaign.