I got to be honest, I stopped caring about Half-Life 3 a long time ago. I say this because I find Valve is unable to count past two with Half-Life 2, Portal 2, Left4Dead 2, and Team Fortress 2. I just figured that Valve honestly had no future plans for this franchise and just forgot about it just like everyone forgot about it at Christmas when the PS4 and Xbox One came into play. However, one rainy and boring day I decided to do a replay of Portal 2 for fun and stumbled across the first den of the infamous Doug Rattmann. I don’t know much of the lore behind the Half-Life and Portal games except for the fact that they are both in the same timeline and Aperature Labs and Black Mesa were rival research labs.

So I looked up this infamous Doug Rattmann and for those of you don’t who this guy is, I’ll be happy to fill you in. Doug Rattmann, also known as “Ratman”, is a former employee at the Aperature Science Labs and one of the few survivors, if not the only survivor, of GlaDOS’ unleashing neurotoxin into the ventilation system of the Labs. Being a schizophrenic, GlaDOS began to play mind games with Doug and also tried to convince him that everything he was experiencing was a lie and only part of his twisted mind. Doug was able to ignore her by setting up several dens around the Labs and also began taking medication for his schizophrenia but that proved to have an even more negative effect on his mind. Combine that with being entrapped in an abandoned facility with a murderous AI, you get quite the insane, mad man.

Now that you are up to date on Doug Rattmann and his origins, allow me to continue. I learned that there were seven dens in total in Portal 2 and I went on a quest to find all of them because the lore kind of interested me. Each of the dens were really interesting looks into the insane mind of Ratman and even a little creepy. However, I want to bring everyone’s attention to the 7th and final Ratman den. When you enter the final Ratman den, there are cans of food that lead to a secret room covered in drawings and more nonsense that you’ve seen in all the other dens but there is more to this den. On one of the walls there is a painting of Chell and something else, when you approach the wall; you hear something strange. It almost sounds like another human voice, I looked more into this and I found this, the actual audio file of the voice behind the wall with subtitles. Listen to this:

Now Valve has never confirmed or denied that the voice behind that wall is actually Doug Rattmann or even a voice at all but I can’t think that this is only a coincidence. If this is Doug Rattmann, he says that he was taken to Black Mesa where Half-Life took place and is a rival of Aperature and he said that Black Mesa is where it all started. He also says that he needs Chell and another person named Johnson. Who is Johnson you might be asking yourself, well none other than Cave Johnson; the founder of Aperature Labs and died of poisoning back in the 80’s. Now as to who Harvey is, I have no idea but there is no way Valve just put this huge easter egg here without a silver lining. I think Valve might be planning a collaboration with Half-Life 3 and Portal 3, maybe that’s why it’s taking so long for Valve to release Half-Life 3 and maybe that’s why there have been no plans for Portal 3.

Maybe they’re coming out with a game where Gordon Freeman and Chell have to worked together or maybe even against each other because technically they are still from rival research laboratories. Half-Life 3 can start with Gordon Freeman and Alyx a few years after the events of Episode 2 where they can meet up with Chell right after she escapes Aperature Labs. Now I don’t really see a lot of interesting dialogue between these two because I think both of them were born mute but it would still be cool to see a game that finally mixes both of these games because there has got to be a reason that these games take place in the same universe. Who knows maybe Valve will also include the Left4Dead timeline to these since all these are at the second installment of their series. Valve has never been the company to disappoint their fans and loyal customers, whatever they do I’m sure fans will probably respect them or love them for it. Besides, all of this is really just speculation and nothing has been proven yet.

Let me know what you guys think in the comments below. Thanks for reading.