A brief history of the 'Portal' games and the unlikely potential of getting a Portal 3
- Ryan G
- May 15, 2023
- 3 min read
From my personal experience of both Portal 1 and 2, I can't help but shut my brain off and travel back in the times these games were made. The first Portal game was released in late 2007 and was met with obvious critical acclaim as it was developed by the (then) pioneer developer Valve. At the time of it's release, in the 2000s to early 2010s, Valve was shipping games left and right. They created new IPs and successfully followed through with creating franchises. Although, as short-lived those franchises may have been, they delivered a gaming experience like no other.
In the specific case of the Portal games though. Could that passion be replicated in another sequel? Personally, I doubt it.
Early Development of Portal 1
The first iteration of the Portal game and it's unique portal systems was not done through Valve. During the Summer of 2004 a small group of students worked together on a Senior project that was to be revealed to the DigiPen Institute of Technology. The game was originally titled Narbacular Drop. The original engine they worked with was called the Sketcher Engine. Since it's before the time Valve stepped in with their own Source Engine, the game was drastically different. The idea of portals still remained though.
They went though many iterations and released a few beta and engine demos throughout the course of a few months and leading into early 2005. By January they caught the attention of Valve and were eventually invited to discuss the build of the game in a possible backing/funding with Valve themselves. By April 2005 they had an official appointment with Valve headquarters to demo the game to Valve employees including Gabe Newell.
According to Kim Swift, an original employee who worked on Narbecular Drop, they were hired on the spot by Gabe Newell himself (context). They would soon rebuild the game under the Source Engine under the supervision of Valve.
Early Development of Portal 2
Portal 2 started development shortly after the release of Portal 1 and was actually proposed very differently. From the portal mechanics themselves to the main character Chell, the game had very different design choices, many that didn't follow the first game. The biggest difference was not including portals in an early build of the game. The developers were working on a new game called F-Stop. This game would soon be rebranded as Portal 2 and include the mechanics and characters used in the original Portal game.
This different mechanics in F-Stop worked as an entirely new way to solve puzzles. In the first Portal game, puzzles were solved entirely using the portal gun that you would use to move objects and yourself across any given space in the test chamber. The mechanic in F-Stop worked more physically with the objects of your environment using placement and scaling mechanisms. For example, if the goal of a chamber was to get to a high place to exit, you could take pictures of boxes and scale them to create a make shift staircase that allowed you to jump up to get to the exit. This also worked with the physics of objects, according to one of the original developers who worked on F-Stop, "So, if you make a balloon huge it can lift more weight than it ordinarily could by itself..." (MinnMax).
Other iterations of Portal 2 included a new protagonist, cut gels, cut voice lines, and a setting that took place in the 50s that would tell the origin of Cave Johnson.
Valve Has Changed
Valve is not the same company that produces video games anymore. Sure, whenever they do release a game, it's met with critical acclaim and prestige. However the inconsistency of their own creative ideas have become worrisome and uninspiring over the last decade. The last original IP they created was Left 4 Dead. Ever since then, they have just released short-lived sequels and pseudo-sequels of those games. Some examples include Counter Strike Global Offensive, Half Life Alyx (takes place in-between Half Life 1 and 2) , Back 4 Blood (a "spiritual successor" to Left 4 Dead), and Artifact (a Dota card game).
I hope that someone with the creative vision and power steps up at Valve and creates sequels to revive some long overdue franchises. At the same time they could possibly create new franchises with this upcoming generation of the Source 2 engine.
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