The Orange Box is already well on top of my list for Game of the Year. Sure, it’s not a game, but what the heck, Portal alone is worth any award heaped upon it, even if you don’t count the excellent Episode Two or the insanely fun Team Fortress 2. With Episode Two wrapping up with a gut-wrenching cliffhanger, fanatics such as yours truly are already salivating over playing Episode Three and Portal 2. That is, provided they are released some time before we die, considering Valve’s infamous release date hijinks.

Talking to Rock, Paper, Shotgun’s John Walker for an interview, Episode Two’s project lead David Speyrer has justified the lack of an Episode Three trailer saying that they are trying something “pretty ambitious” for the project, and didn’t want to overcommit.

I think if you’d watched the credits roll and then this high action Episode Three trailer came on, you wouldn’t quite feel the same. Another reason was to leave us open on Episode Three. We’re going to try and do something pretty ambitious for that project. We don’t want to over commit. If you look at the Episode Two trailer that we shipped with Episode One there’s some pretty radical difference between what you see there and see in finished game. That’s really an artefact of making a trailer for a product that’s still in heavy production. You just don’t know where you’re going to end up.

Uh-oh, Polly don’t like that cracker! Sure, I’d sell an arm, a leg and any other appendage to play Episode Three, but with such an “ambitious” project, there’s every change we’re probably going to have to wait longer than the 18 months we spent waiting for the Orange Box. Considering all the new particle systems that they built for the second episode but are saving for the next one and (most probably) a new DirectX 10 environment, in addition to getting the game on the consoles, Episode Three may not hit Steam preload servers until 2010!

Hey, as long as they don’t make me buy HL2, Episode One, Episode Two, Portal and Team Fortress 2 all over again, I can’t complain. No wait, that’s not right. I can complain, but I’m too busy basking in The Orange Box’s warm glowing warming glow.

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• Dev Kanchen Says:
  November 12th, 2007 at 8:52 pm

  I guess the fact that Episodes One and Two were supposedly (or at least up to a point) being developed in parallel allowed for the whole trailer thing to happen. When Episode Two ended without one, it was kinda obvious that work would begin (a little later) on the third more-or-less from the ground up. And considering it’s the closing chapter (in the episodic trilogy at least), it could even be a little longer..oh well. Though I can’t quite figure out what “ambitious” means…unless maybe (which is something I personally have been thinking could happen…no those are NOT sharp jagged rocks you are looking at!) they’re planning to let the Freeman speak and see his own face from the third person. Hm…..strange it’s peaceful all around.