After years of silence, Valve Corporation released the VR-exclusive Half-Life follow-up Half-Life: Alyx, showing signs of life from the long-dormant developer. This – alongside belated updates for Left 4 Dead and Team Fortress 2 – inspired hope and excitement among fans who desperately want Valve to make games again instead of perpetually managing Steam Sales.
Naturally, this led to discussions about a third Portal game, and how exactly it could continue where Portal 2 left off. Even years after its release, Portal remains a gaming and pop culture touchstone. Though complete as it is, more Portal wouldn’t hurt and would even be welcomed.
Wheatley’s Revenge
Midway through Portal 2, the tables turn on the infinitely smug GLaDOS. This time, she’s at the mercy of someone else while the bumbling AI Wheatley takes control of Aperture Science. Things go south for him, though, and the game ends with him getting flung into space.
Stuck near the moon’s orbit with the Space Core for company, Wheatley’s return is highly unlikely but in the off chance that he finds a way back to Earth, it could set in motion a third Portal. If he does return, he could try to usurp GLaDOS once again or start up his own experiments just to piss her off. That said, he’s bound to fail no matter what.
GLaDOS Gets Another Test Subject
The easiest way for Portal to continue is if GLaDOS got another test subject. Though the specifics are never given, it’s hinted that Chell is just one of possibly thousands of test subjects stored away in Aperture Science. It just so happens that she’s the one who tested GLaDOS’ patience the most and won.
Portal 2 ends with GLaDOS mentioning that she’s going to conduct more tests, using her time with Chell as a learning experience. Portal 3 could simply focus on whoever is next in line for testing after Chell, though this would admittedly be the laziest solution that also risks retreading Chell’s footsteps.
More ATLAS & P-Body
Portal 2 was an expansion of its predecessor, going as far as to include a co-op mode plus a brand new storyline, starring the droids ATLAS and P-Body. The two served as GLaDOS’ new test subjects, though their “trials” were really more of errands to help the AI gain full control of Aperture Science.
Like Chell (more on her later), ATLAS and P-Body don’t really say much but they’re filled with personality and fun. Now that Chell’s time in Portal is over, a third installment can follow the continued misadventures of the two robots. That, and their escapades can once again reveal more about Aperture Science and what GLaDOS is really up to.
A Cave Johnson Prequel
While the most in-person appearance he gets in Portal 2 are old portraits and audio recordings, Cave Johnson – the eccentric founder and CEO of Aperture Science – is an irreplaceable presence in the game. His ramblings about science, lemons, moon rocks, and literally anything provided much of Portal 2’s humor and world-building.
Seeing how Aperture Science came to be and the countless pre-portal guns tests from his goofy perspective can provide an entire game’s worth of story and fun. The gameplay will have to change to fit his managerial position and with Cave’s comically unstoppable determination, Portal 3 could be one of the silliest management simulators made. Cave Johnson (and his alternate universe selves) returned as voiceover in the DLC The Perpetual Testing Initiative, though a game starring him would be a different matter entirely.
An Aperture Science Management Simulator
Gamers often jokingly wonder what a game would be like if it were focused on a random non-player character (NPC). Portal is bereft of any other human characters, but its past wasn’t. Aperture Science was once staffed with countless people before GLaDOS unleashed neurotoxins in the name of science.
A prequel set around the time of GLaDOS’ creation or earlier wouldn’t just reveal more about the lore in a way not unlike Half-Life’s opening act that follows Gordon Freeman’s routine, but also give developers a way to revisit Portal’s black comedy. Besides, something like this was already done in The Perpetual Testing Initiative, where players – taking the role of Bendy, one of the stick figures in a typical Aperture PSA – made custom test chambers under an alternate Cave Johnson’s orders. A day in the life of Aperture Sciences’ weirdness would be fun, to say the least.
A Rat Man Survival Spinoff
Though he’s never seen, Rat Man’s presence is always a constant in Portal. Also known as Doug Rattman, the Rat Man is the only known survivor of GLaDOS’ massacre of Aperture Science. Little is known about him save for his hidden schizophrenic rambling and what his comic (set between the Portal games) reveals. The latter shows how his actions ultimately led to GLaDOS’ downfall and Chell’s survival.
It’s still up in the air if Rat Man is dead or otherwise, and this mystery could serve as a great premise for a survival-based Portal 3. This could be a prequel wherein players leave the graffiti and murals they (i.e. Chell) saw during the tests, or it could be a sequel/Portal 2 sidestory showing what Rat Man was up to during GLaDOS’ resurrection.
A GLaDOS Management Simulator
While she’s the games’ primary antagonist, GLaDOS is practically the deuteragonist. The callously murderous AI had her own character arc, though it ended with her deleting whatever traces of humanity (i.e. Caroline) she could have. That being said, giving players the chance to become GLaDOS for an entire game would be beyond interesting and also darkly humorous.
By Portal 2’s end, GLaDOS regained control of the facilities and is preparing another barrage of experiments for science’s sake. Though gameplay would be radically different, Portal 3 could really shake things up by letting players (as GLaDOS) run Aperture Science instead of being its test subject.
Chell Returns
A testament to Portal’s writing is the fact that Chell says literally nothing and yet she remains one of the most beloved video game protagonists ever made. With that in mind, it’s simply preposterous to propose a Portal 3 and leave Chell out of the picture.
The only way for a new Portal to happen with Chell is if she were to return to Aperture Science’s labs. At the end of Portal 2, GLaDOS lets Chell (and a Companion Cube) leave, preferring to give Chell freedom than deal with her any longer. For whatever reason, whether she’s dragged back or otherwise, Chell’s return can kickstart yet another set of portal gun trials.
Portal 3 Goes Into The Portal-Verse
A subtle detail in Portal’s lore is the existence of a multiverse and/or other worlds. This may feel better fit in Half-Life’s story (i.e. whatever Xen is), but it’s bluntly introduced in The Perpetual Testing Initiative. Here, an alternate Cave Johnson instructs players to create and participate in tests so that his near-bankrupt Aperture Science can outsource (read: steal) ideas from parallel, more successful Aperture Sciences.
Portal’s main story may be done, but the same can’t be said for its alternate versions. Maybe GLaDOS isn’t too sociopathic in one, and maybe Chell never even existed in another. Or maybe it’s set in the octopus-dominated dimension or that world where Cave Johnson bought out Black Mesa. Portal 3 can explore any of these realities, opening infinite possibilities while still retaining the original games’ core.
Portal 3 Uses The Half-Life Connection
Thanks to scattered hints and GLaDOS’ passive aggressive mentions of Black Mesa, it’s confirmed that Portal and Half-Life take place in the same world. Half-Life 2: Episode Two connects them with the mission to get to the mysterious Borealis – an Aperture Science research vessel – stuck in the arctic. Reportedly, the ship houses a portal device that both the human resistance and the Combine are racing to get to.
But since Half-Life 3 is basically a white elephant, most people have long given up on seeing this teased crossover pay off. And then Half-Life: Alyx came out, which ended by teasing the now-mythical sequel’s coming. Whether GLaDOS and Chell return or not, the hypothetical Half-Life 3 can continue Portal by showing the fruits of Aperture Science’s labor through the Borealis while keeping Portal 2’s finality intact.
