Reddit user Relevant_Basis5444 caught changes to Valve’s Steam page, hinting that Deadlock might not be the only upcoming title the company is working on. In a post on Reddit, Relevant_Basis5444 caught the fact that Valve’s Steam Page lists two titles as upcoming releases, despite Deadlock being the only one visible.

While one could chalk this up to a simple display error on the Steam page, it could also hint that Valve has yet another title that it is gearing up to release.

Considering the company is Valve, quite a bit of speculation revolves around the possibility of a new Half-Life game in development. A sequel to Half-Life 2: Episode 2 has been one of the largest subjects of conspiracy when it comes to Valve making new titles, and the fact that the company has largely focused on multiplayer games since then has done little to quell speculation.

For context, the last major single-player title released by Valve was the VR-exclusive Half-Life: Alyx. Since then, the company has been working on several projects, including ongoing support for Dota 2, Counter-Strike 2, and more recently, the alpha test release of shooter MOBA hybrid Deadlock.

Half-Life: Alyx itself, while being a prequel to Half-Life 2, also ended up fuelling quite a bit of speculation because its ending has major implications for the entire Half-Life setting, and especially the ending that was originally set up by Half-Life 2: Episode 2.

While Valve itself has been characteristically quiet, rumours from a few years ago indicated that the company wasn’t focusing on a Half-Life sequel and instead was putting all of its efforts at the time behind the Steam Deck. Reports from 2020 also revealed a few cancelled projects from Valve, including Half-Life 3 and even Left 4 Dead 3.

More recently, Valve has been constantly working and iterating on its next competitive multiplayer title Deadlock. A combination of hero shooters and MOBAs, Deadlock pits two teams together, each tasked with taking out the other’s base. While the game is still early in development, it has been getting constant patches and updates for balance tuning.

Freedom Fighters 2

IO Interactive delivered one of the most enjoyable shooters with 2003’s Freedom Fighters, a game that beautifully meshes tactical elements along with pure adrenaline-pumping action and an emotionally charged narrative of overthrowing oppression – and fans absolutely lapped it up. There have been scant rumblings of a sequel over the years, but nothing much has come to fruition. While the IP continues to be under the possession of now-independent IO Interactive, the chances of a full-fledged sequel happening anytime soon are extremely slim. 

Sleeping Dogs 2

Sleeping Dogs might have felt like yet another one of those cheap GTA clones, but United Front Games’ open-world offerings were as much a product of their creativity as it was derivative of Rockstar’s works. Wei Shen’s story of navigating through the criminal underbelly of Hong Kong is a consistently thrilling ride that’s punctuated with great gameplay variety and fun open-world activities, and the ideas were ripe to be built upon with a sequel. United Front Games had some ambitious plans in place, but those were gone to waste as the developer closed doors permanently in 2012 – leaving us with faint hopes that will probably never come true.

Star Wars 1313

There is no shortage of Star Wars-based games in the current market scenario, but it’s hard not to reminisce about the canceled Star Wars 1313 project. The game was being developed by LucasArts themselves at one point, and it would be telling the story of Boba Fett in his early days of navigating the galaxy. Initial showings of the game looked impressive with its cinematic gameplay and faithful rendition of the popular sci-fi setting, but the project was put on hold when Disney purchased the studio – putting the final nail in its coffin.

Agent

Rockstar is behind some of the best games of the last couple of generations, and the studio is also behind the mysterious vaporware that was Agent. First announced all the way in 2007, Agent was supposed to be an open-world game with elements of espionage and fans were understandably excited to see what was in store. Months and years passed with little in the name of concrete information on the game, and Agent slowly faded into the void with no hopes of emerging back once agai

Bully 2

Since we are on the topic of canceled Rockstar games, we should also discuss Bully 2. The original Bully felt like a breath of fresh air with its school setting and a narrative that let you experience the highs and lows of a teenager living in a boarding school, and those ideas were ripe to be built upon with a sequel. While nothing was ever announced in an official capacity, there have been several rumors and reports that state that Bully 2 was at least in the cards at some point if not in active development. Rumors continue to churn out even to this date, but the chances of anything coming to fruition are pretty low.

Scalebound

PlatinumGames has rightfully established its reputation as one of the best names when it comes to developing action games brimming with style and substance, and Scalebound felt emblematic of the studio’s biggest strengths. Scalebound’s idea of using dragons as your companions was enough to send fan expectations off the charts, and initial showings were looking really promising. However, development wasn’t the smoothest and the team faced several problems in trying to create a cohesive experience with online functionality built into the game eventually leading to Microsoft canceling the project altogether. It’s a shame that such an amazing idea was let go to waste, and Scalebound could have genuinely turned out to be a great time if PlatinumGames was given the creative freedom they wished for.

Silent Hills

Konami’s Silent Hill franchise is set to make a grand comeback with several new entries set to release in the near future, but we can’t help but think about the canceled Silent Hills project. Silent Hills was Kojima’s take on the popular horror franchise, and the playable teaser was more than enough to leave fans salivating for the final release. But the infamous Konami-Kojima breakout left the project in ruins, eventually leading to it being canned and our hopes and dreams unfulfilled. 

A New Metal Gear by Hideo Kojima

The Metal Gear Solid series has continued to deliver hit after hit with each new entry, and it continues to be one of the most revered franchises thanks to the incredible attention to detail that Kojima and the team have poured into each and every aspect of the experience. While the series is also making a comeback with the upcoming release of Delta Snake Eater, we would love to see another new Metal Gear directed by Kojima san himself, but the infamous Konami-Kojima break-up leaves little chance of that happening anytime soon.

 A New Burnout

Criterion’s Burnout series was one of the best arcade racers of its time, and its gameplay loop of crashing into rival cars and emphasizing a generally aggressive driving style was what helped the franchise stand out from the crowd. But with EA eventually moving Criterion to work on the Need For Speed series, the Burnout IP was kept hostage and it slowly turned dormant over the years. Without a shadow of a doubt, there are more than thousands of fans who are hoping for a revival, but the current state of EA and its obsession with continuing to invest in NFS means that a new Burnout game isn’t likely to come out anytime soon. 

Portal 3

The Portal games continue to be some of the best puzzle games of all time, thanks to an ingenious central mechanic that forms the basis of all gameplay and the witty writing that came along with it. Many games have tried to create similar experiences since then, but none have managed to capture the magic of Valve’s works – which has left us craving for a potential Portal 3 even after all this time. But given the current stance of Valve’s game development division, it seems like Portal 3 would probably never see the light of day. 

New Dino Crisis 

Dino Crisis was very much a product of its time, a game confident in its ability to deliver a consistently thrilling experience despite being based on a concept so weird. We have had some really fond memories of shooting down dinosaurs with machine guns, and we would really love to get a new entry with the same level of eccentricity and fun that is so characteristic of the franchise. However, it feels highly unlikely that the developer would be making much effort to breathe new life into this now stagnant IP. And no, Exoprimal doesn’t count.

Deep Down

Yet another one of the developer’s failed projects, Deep Down was put forth as one of the PS4’s launch titles. Deep Down featured impressive graphics for its time, and the concept of working your way through procedurally generated dungeons with friends sounded like a really fun idea that could have genuinely turned out to be a big hit. Development wasn’t obviously the smoothest, which eventually led to the game being delayed to an indefinite date. We still think about what Deep Down could have been, but all we can do is hope.

Titanfall 3

Titanfall 2 was a great game that y featured one of the best FPS campaigns of all time but it failed to capture much of an audience since it was sandwiched between the highly overrated Battlefield and a Call of Duty series- making it a commercial failure. The future of the franchise already looked bleak after that failure, and now that the developer has been focusing majorly on Star Wars – a potential Titanfall 3 is most likely not on the cards. 

The Next Dark Souls

It’s safe to say that FromSoftware has birthed an entire genre with Dark Souls, and the entire trilogy remains one of the best experiences of recent memory. The developer has already moved on to bigger experiences with the likes of Elden Ring, but there’s undoubtedly a void for a new Dark Souls game. Between this and the fact that the trilogy brought a definitive end to the endless cycle of fire, a new game coming out feels like a distant dream that probably won’t come true.

Prototype 3

Radical Entertainment’s Prototype was a really great open-world game that provided a really satisfying power fantasy as you mow down entire squadrons of enemies in moments unnoticed, and those elements were taken to the next level with Prototype 2. Radical Entertainment was slowly devolved into a support studio for Activision’s bigger franchises before it was closed sometime in 2014, leaving the dreams of any potential Prototype 3 dead in the dust.

That’s certainly what the LinkedIn profiles of some current and former Valve employees suggest. To be more specific, Valve artist Boyang Zhu’s profile mentions that he’s been working on an unannounced game for the developer since joining in January last year.

Meanwhile, Michael Anderson, who was a level designer at Valve for two years before leaving earlier year, mentions on his profile that while at the company, he was working on an unannounced title with “ambitious, never-before-seen gameplay”, for which he also made “puzzles from scratch”.

Those descriptions are quite vague, as one might expect for an unannounced title, but as you may have guessed, fans are speculating that they might be referring to a new Portal game. Fans of the series have been waiting for a new instalment for well over a decade at this point, but as is often the case with Valve franchises, it has been unable to get past its second instalment for a long, long time.

Interestingly, bite-sized Portal spinoff Aperture Desk Job was released last year as a Steam Deck advert of sorts- could that have been Valve dipping its toes in the water in preparation of jumping fully back into the universe with a full-fledged, long-overdue new mainline instalment? One would certainly hope- but for now, hope and speculate is all we can do.

One of those is Portal. The incredible Portal 2 launched back in 2011, and even now, more than a decade later, the series’ ravenous fanbase remains hopeful of a sequel. And while there’s little to no indication that one will be greenlit by Valve anytime soon, people involved with the franchise, it seems, are just as keen on seeing it continue as its fans.

Speaking recently on the Kiwi Talkz podcast, Erik Wolpaw – who wrote both Portal and Portal 2, and also returned to Valve to co-write Half-Life: Alyx – said that he’s hopeful Valve will start working on a new game in the series, because he feels they’re “literally going to be too old to work on Portal 3” if they wait too much longer.

“We’ve gotta start Portal 3. That’s my message to… to whoever,” Wolpaw said (transcribed by VGC). “I am not getting any younger. 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.”

When asked if he personally would like to be involved in a new Portal game, Wolpaw said: “I would love to. I’d work on another Portal in a second, but I can’t make it happen by myself.”

He went on to add that while he would certainly advocate for a third instalment in the series, given the fact that Valve’s staff is constantly split across a number of things that are vying for attention – from game development to Steam and more – getting a major new Portal game off the ground might prove to be complicated.

“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. As much as it seem 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.”

Later, Wolpaw added: “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.”

Earlier this year, Valve released Aperture Desk Job, a free short set in the Portal universe accompanying the launch of the Steam Deck. Meanwhile, in the lead-up to Half-Life: Alyx’s launch, Valve suggested on a number of occasions that the VR title could be followed by more Half-Life releases. Whether the same also applies to Portal (or other Valve franchises) remains to be seen, but long-suffering fans will surely have their fingers crossed.

Speaking of Half-Life: Alyx, recent rumours have claimed that a PSVR2 version of the game is also in the works. Read more on that through here.

Of course, the goal with Portal 2 was to take it beyond the confines of a simple puzzlers into a full-fledged video game. With that objective complete, what could be next? This seems to be the issue with Half Life 3 – the second game introduced open world elements, vehicles, an epic scale, a sprawling narrative with memorable side-characters, new mechanics especially in the area of video game physics and much more. What could possibly be next for that game?

Both games may be wanting for a direction but at this point it boils down to which one would be more feasible. Do you expect Valve to bring out Portal 3? Or do you desperately want Half Life 3, even it means waiting for who knows how much longer? Let us know in the comments below…though at this rate, we might as well start asking for Left 4 Dead 3.

At this point, it seems pretty likely that we’re going to see a new Halo, namely Halo 5, despite the fact that Microsoft already announced Halo: Spartan Assault for Windows 8 PCs and Windows Phone 8 devices. But it’s interesting to see games like a new Gears of War and Portal 3 also in the running.

But heck, even Half Life 3 is featured. As such, this poll only indicates what fans want to see at E3 2013. It will be interesting if even one of the so-called “unlikely” half of this list gets featured at E3 2013. Then again, pretty much anything is possible at this point.

E3 2013 starts tomorrow with Microsoft’s press conference beginning at 9.00 AM PDT.

A new structure

Another test chamber eh? Never seen one of those before

Portal 2 made a good stab at this, but the game’s opening was still very much a series of disjointed test chambers. I understand that this is the mould and it must be easier to design, but some of the more exciting bits happened when this structure wasn’t so strongly adhered to. The gameplay didn’t even really change much ironically, but the different pacing made the experience feel a bit more fresh. Here’s hoping Portal 3 will deviate from the level-based structure of its predecessors, if only slightly.

More varied settings

The sections in the abandoned and broken parts of the test centre offered a very pleasant change of scenery and pace.

Another area that Portal 2 made good progress on, but still has more room for improvement. The sections in the abandoned and broken parts of the test centre offered a very pleasant change of scenery and pace. More can always be done though. Why can’t we have a Portal game in mountains, dense forests and icy glaciers? Sure it would be a nightmare to design, but I don’t know anyone who wouldn’t want to try climbing a mountain with a portal gun.

New abilities

If only that fire was coming out of that Portal Gun

My mind was blown enough by the sheer premise of the original Portal, but for number 2 I was pumped up for more. The inclusion of the different gels was certainly welcome, but I was hoping Chell would have more in her arsenal aside from the usual portal gun. I’m not saying more weapons should have been added, just more abilities for players to use. In Portal 2 it felt like the additions were external to the player and this made the game feel like less of a progression from the first. More abilities that you need to activate and utilize to get around will give players more variety in Portal 3.