With these known quantities in mind, Valve does about the smartest thing it can with a full-blown sequel to such an effectively minimalist package by tossing out many of the self-imposed restrictions of the original and largely ignoring the temptation to lean on lots of easy callbacks. The element of surprise was a significant factor in the impact of the original Portal, but going into Portal 2, you know how a portal gun works, you know that Aperture Science is essentially a less diabolical, but equally irresponsible counterpart to Half-Life's Black Mesa, and you know that GlaDOS likes testing, but loves murder. I use the somewhat dismissive 'just' here because the challenges of following up something so inventive and so universally well-received are arguably greater than coming up with the core concept in the first place. Even the original Portal was all but defined by its tight focus and limited scale it just executed on all those elements with a consistent, almost preternatural level of ingenuity and humor.

Panic.Īfter the end credits roll on Portal 2, it's kind of hard to believe that this series had its humble beginnings as a student project called Narbacular Drop, which itself just laid down the basic mechanical framework for the kind of fourth-dimensional puzzle-solving of the original Portal.

Esrb rating for portal and portal 2