Gabe Newell rolls his eyes over criticism that games have to be realistic.

The Valve founder, 61, has overseen some of the most popular games in decades, including 'Portal', 'Team Fortress' and 'Half-Life', all of which focus on the extraordinary.

Reflecting on 'Half-Life' for its 25th anniversary, Gabe explained why he doesn’t want to keep his games grounded in reality.

He said in the 'Half-Life: 25th Anniversary Documentary': "You'd have these conversations where you'd be sitting in a design review and somebody [would] say, 'That's not realistic.'

"And you're like, 'Okay, what does that have?' like, 'Explain to me why that's interesting.'

"Because in the real world, I have to write up lists of stuff I have to go to the grocery store to buy. And I have never thought to myself that realism is fun. I go play games to have fun."

After the first game was met with thunderous applause upon its release in 1998, Valve were quick to begin development on a sequel, 'Half Life 2', which launched six years later.

'Half-Life 2: Episode Three' was announced in 2006 and promised to tie up the story of scientist Gordon Freeman's battle against the villainous alien Combine empire, but it was never released.

However, 14 years later, 'Half-Life: Alyx' released exclusively for VR consoles.

Speaking with Edge at the time of 'Alyx's' release, Gabe explained why 'Episode Three' would likely never see the light of day.

He said: "People have seen us sort of step away from immersive single-player experiences for a while, and a lot of that was that we saw more tractable opportunities elsewhere.

"I mean, a typical gaming company would just keep cranking out sequel after sequel – but the reason people value Valve is that we’re supposed to be the ones picking interesting problems and solving them.”