if its not corrupted to hell and back)

That’s the key. It’s the whole current state of “mine for my entire lifespan, plus decades after to make sure my descendents reap the rewards of my work for generations to come” that is so wrong with copyright.

Original copyright law in the US was 14 years, with an option to renew it up to 28. That at least makes sense to me.

So, Valve releases Portal in 2007, great. They release Portal 2 in 2011, also great. And then they do almost nothing with it. It’s been 15 years since Portal 2.

If they were making a Portal 3? Fine, just say so. Renew it and the IP for Portal 1 remains yours until 2038. Don’t want to do Portal anymore? Well, Portal 1 and its characters should have gone public domain in 2021, then.