While Gearbox Software is no stranger to the Half-Life franchise, having worked with Valve on the Opposing Force and Blue Shift expansion packs, as well as the PS2 version of Half-Life, studio president and CEO Randy Pitchford isn't so sure his team should return to the franchise.

On the latest episode of our monthly interview show IGN Unfiltered , we asked Pitchford if, given the opportunity, Gearbox would be interested in making the long-awaited and seemingly never-coming third episode that continues the Half-Life 2 story, and he replied with an air of uncertainty."I don't know what Half-Life 2: Episode Three is, so I don't know. I don't know that we could or should," Pitchford said. "It's a fun universe, I'd love to spend more time in it. I don't know what way that would make sense, though."After emphasizing that he can't speak for the entirety of Gearbox, which boasts a staff of a few hundred people, Pitchford added, "I feel like we got done with what we wanted to do. We did Opposing Force, we did Blue Shift, we did the PlayStation 2 version of Half-Life, and that was a lot of fun because we got to clean up a lot of things and really tune it."Pitchford noted the PS2 version of Half-Life was helpful in teaching Gearbox how to make console games, as prior to that, the studio had developed games strictly for PC. Gearbox also aided in the development of the Dreamcast version of Half-Life, which was ultimately canceled.Stay tuned for part one of our full IGN Unfiltered interview with Pitchford for more on his thoughts about working on the Half-Life franchise with Valve, as well as his experience working with Bungie on Halo: Combat Evolved for PC.

Alex Osborn is a freelance writer for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @alexcosborn