Beyond the release of the now not-so far off 2: Episode Three, CVG.co.uk learn today from big cheese that the Half-Life world still has plenty of life left in it even with the current trio of episodes drawing to a close.

"There's specific stories and character arcs or plot lines that we know terminate. But... we have this bible that covers a lot, and there's a lot of interesting stories to tell," Newell teased, adding that Portal (and all its Aperture Science-based madness) had inspired the developers to explore other areas of the Half-Life world long before they intentionally started considering 'other stories'.

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"We'd certainly love to be working in other universes because any time you get two Valve people together they come up with five game ideas and thirteen universes that they would like to tell and play them in. So there's a lot of Half-Life left at Valve," he added, much to the delight of the series legions of fans, no doubt.

We'll keep our noses to the ground for more on this.

By Luke Guttridge