Acclaimed developer Valve is well-known for its tendency not to revisit franchises after the second entry, but that doesn’t mean that a game like Portal 2 can never be expanded upon. Portal 2 serves as a model sequel in many ways, taking the original game’s interesting concept and story and expanding on it across the board without losing the fundamental ingenuity. It’s hard to imagine a great way to revisit the Aperture Science Enrichment Center in Chell’s shoes after the credits of Portal 2 roll, but there’s still room for interesting surrounding stories in the facility.
One of the best aspects of Valve is the company’s willingness to embrace fan works, and there’s a long history of mods and games playing around in the world of Half-Life and Portal. Some things are fundamentally silly, like the Steam game Garry’s Mod, a sandbox that started as a Source Engine mod and ended up being published officially through Valve as a standalone experience. Others, like Black Mesa and Portal Stories: Mel, offer serious additions to their respective franchises despite Valve’s lack of involvement in development.
You Owe It To Yourself To Play Portal On Switch
Both Portal titles are now on the Switch eShop in the Companion Collection, and they still hold up as some of the best puzzle games ever made.
Portal: Revolution Is A Major Portal 2 Mod
The newest big addition to the canon of Valve fan works is Portal: Revolution, a mod for Portal 2 that takes place before the events of the game. Developed by Second Face Software, Portal: Revolution is getting an official Steam release on January 5, 2024, so Valve has approved the title for distribution despite its lack of direct involvement. Portal: Revolution is built on the Portal 2: Community Edition engine, which uses official source code provided by Valve to make extensive modifications and overhauls possible.
Although it might be easy to assume that the mod will only add a few new levels, the Steam page for Portal: Revolution promises 5–7 hours of playtime in one place and over 8 in another, and either of these measurements would put it close to Portal 2‘s runtime. The real challenge is maintaining a consistent quality for the puzzling experience across that length, a task that Second Face Software seems to take seriously. The difficulty apparently picks up where Portal 2‘s complexity ends, but Second Face Software has apparently “ensured through rigorous playtesting that every player can solve the puzzles,” so it shouldn’t be a frustrating or obtuse experience.
Portal: Revolution Fits Right Into The Portal Series
Portal: Revolution isn’t reinventing the wheel when it comes to the basic story setup, choosing to follow a similar tack to both the official games and works like Portal Stories: Mel. Per the usual prerogative, the player steps into the shoes of an Aperture test subject interfacing with a central AI character, in this case a personality sphere named Stirling. Setting aside characters like GLaDOS, Chell, and Wheatley keeps Portal: Revolution from trampling on any of the official canon. It does seem like the protagonist will be voiced, pushing a different dynamic than the way Chell is characterized through the personalities she interacts with and her movement through the facility.
Video Games Where Players Are The “AIs”
First-person puzzle games, third-person exploration games, and point-and-click adventures where AI and robots, not humans, are the protagonists.
Environmental storytelling is still likely to play a big part of Portal: Revolution, as Stirling’s mission focuses on restoring the decaying Aperture to the heights that it once enjoyed. One big difference between Portal and Portal 2 is the transition from intact test chambers to crumbling and overgrown environments, and Portal: Revolution is leaning into the latter idea. Using these elements in a way that’s as meaningful as Portal 2‘s implementation is a tall order, but even with roots in the aging Source Engine, it makes for some respectable eye candy regardless.
New Puzzle Mechanics In Portal: Revolution
Portal: Revolution is also introducing a number of new mechanics to sustain the 40+ new puzzles that it features, although the incredible Portal Gun mechanic obviously still remains at the center of the brain-teasing. A new laser cube variant could make lasers play a bigger role than ever before, emitting one itself rather than just redirecting an existing beam. A Gel Cleansing Field could likewise expand the possibilities of gel-focused puzzles, which provided some of the trickier challenges in Portal 2, and the Pneumatic Diversity Vent, originally exhibited as a puzzle mechanic for Portal 2 before being largely cut from the final product, gets to finally make a proper appearance.
The original Portal only allowed the creation of blue portals at the very beginning to ease in the overall concept, and Portal: Revolution seems to be running with that idea to create challenges, with over 15 puzzles sticking to a stripped-down Portal Gun mechanic. If everything sounds like a lot to juggle, it can be reassuring to know that mechanics are drip-fed and challenges aren’t based on sophisticated platforming skills. Portal: Revolution seems to be aiming for a gentler ramp upward than the somewhat infamous difficulty of Portal Stories: Mel, perhaps taking a similar tack to what an official Portal 3 might aim for.
Portal 2 Lives On Through The Community
Although projects as ambitious as Portal: Revolution are few and far between, fans of Portal 2 have had plenty to enjoy over the years since its original release. The replayability of the game itself has been significantly augmented through the amount of Steam Workshop creations that it’s received, with over 900,000 items currently available to download. The Steam storefront is also home to some additional major mods for both Portal games like Portal Reloaded and Rexaura, and the former mod PUNT is now set for release as a standalone Source Engine puzzle platformer.
Portal 2 Desolation Mod Makes Game Visuals On Par With Half-Life: Alyx
Portal 2’s long-awaited Desolation mod on PC will receive a graphics overhaul that makes the game look about as good as Half-Life: Alyx.
This wealth of options hasn’t reduced fan demands for new titles from Valve, with the VR-exclusive Half-Life: Alyx marking the only major continuation of the company’s classic narrative franchises in many years. It does, however, make for a nice distraction, and titles like Portal: Revolution can generate some proper anticipation and hype of their own. If Portal: Revolution delivers on everything it promises, it could be the next best thing to an actual prequel or sequel for fans of Portal 2.
Portal 2
- Franchise
- Portal
- Platform(s)
- Windows , macOS , Linux , PlayStation 3 , Xbox 360 , Nintendo Switch
- Released
- April 18, 2011
- Developer(s)
- Valve
- Publisher(s)
- Valve
- Genre(s)
- Puzzle , Platformer
- ESRB
- E 10+
- How Long To Beat
- 8-22 hours
- Prequel
- Portal
