Valve Confirms More Portal

In what will surely come as a surprise to absolutely no one, Valve has confirmed that it has definite plans for more Portal.

Valve spokesman Doug Lombardi said the company would be pursuing the Portal phenomenon, and that it planned to add significantly more to the game than simply "a bunch of new puzzles." Speaking to Eurogamer, Lombardi said, "There'll be more Portal, for sure. But the details of that, to be honest, we're still working out."

"The only smart thing we did for Portal was to hire those seven kids and give them the support they needed to make the game," he added.

Typically for Valve, Lombardi wouldn't comment on any sort of potential release date of either Portal or the next chapter in the Half-Life 2 story. "With Episode Three we want to live up to the promise of where we are taking things to; there's a lot of working being done to make sure we deliver on that promise," he said.

Portal, a short puzzle game that was released in 2007 as part of Valve's Orange Box, became an instant sensation for its unique gameplay, closing credits song and the Weighted Companion Cubes. Despite its brevity, the game has garnered a Metacritic score of 90, and is the first and apparently only game to ever receive no criticism whatsoever in Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw's Zero Punctuation.

Permalink

I have yet to play the first Portal. Feels like there is no point now, since everyone on the escapists forum keep talking about some cake, and how it's completely made up. And to be honest, if the storyline only revolves around a made-up cake, I'm not that eager.

Swenglish, try reading the Less is More editorial before you give up on Portal in its entirety. The cake may be a lie, but it's not the only or even the most important plot point.

As to the article here, well, I could be witty or insightful but I'll stick with a concise "Yay!"

-- Steve

More Portal? Sweetness. I still need to buy one of the plush cubes from Valve lol ;;>_>

And the lord said, blessed are those who search for more cake, for they shall find it.

You know, I was just playing an FPS the other day when I started thinking to myself...this game needs more Portal. I've got a FEVER for more Portal.

EVERYTHING needs more portal. it's probably the greatest game ever.

While I agree more Portal can be a good thing, this leaves me somewhat apprehensive. Yes, Portal was a great game, but, was it a fluke? Could the team that made Portal pull off the same phenomenon that they did with the first? Because I'd much rather be happy with Portal as it is, with new content being supplied by the fan base, than the game being struck by "Crappy Sequel Syndrome." Its not that I don't have confidence in Valve and the guys that made Portal, but,as they say, Lightning never strikes the same place twice..

Anton P. Nym:
Swenglish, try reading the Less is More editorial before you give up on Portal in its entirety. The cake may be a lie, but it's not the only or even the most important plot point.

As to the article here, well, I could be witty or insightful but I'll stick with a concise "Yay!"

-- Steve

I guess I am a bit prejudiridistic (?) about Portal. I played the 2D flash game and found THAT brilliant. I guess I'll give the real thing a go then.

Portal is the best game ever created by anyone ever apart from some other games sometimes.

Swenglish:
prejudiridistic

Sure.

Nice! Can't see what they could add story wise. But just more puzzles in general?
Sure! Why the hell not? I'm still having fun trying to figure how to beat a level with only 3 portals.
Okay maybe it's not that fun. Frustration!

The Reverend:
While I agree more Portal can be a good thing, this leaves me somewhat apprehensive. Yes, Portal was a great game, but, was it a fluke? Could the team that made Portal pull off the same phenomenon that they did with the first? Because I'd much rather be happy with Portal as it is, with new content being supplied by the fan base, than the game being struck by "Crappy Sequel Syndrome." Its not that I don't have confidence in Valve and the guys that made Portal, but,as they say, Lightning never strikes the same place twice..

Check out Narbacular Drop, by the folks who made Portal. Same underlying mechanic, but quite a different game, with a good little fanbase running. Just proof that if you've got a good enough lightning rod, lightning can easily strike the same place.

The Reverend:
Lightning never strikes the same place twice..

Which is why they won't make the same game twice. Each of the Half-Life games have a different feel, TFC != TFC 2, and Portal 2 is likely to be a very different game as well. This isn't EA we're talking about here!

Obviously the best solution is to get Tim Schafer in on this business and the result will be...

Psychonauts 2, this time with Portals!

Awesome-sauce. I'm going to try a remain cautiously guarded about this though, just in the chance that it sputters and dies spectacularly like so many other sequels.

But I'm sure that will last.

oneplus999:

The Reverend:
Lightning never strikes the same place twice..

Which is why they won't make the same game twice. Each of the Half-Life games have a different feel, TFC != TFC 2, and Portal 2 is likely to be a very different game as well. This isn't EA we're talking about here!

Indeed, but will it provide the same enjoyment all experience that the first Portal did? Different can be good, but will it be as good?

I am going to share a different opinion. I bought The Orange Box a week ago, and I must say that Portal has to be the most overrated game of 2007. Yes, I am aware that Halo 3 got released as well.

It is not a bad game, but the amount of praise it received in comparison to what it delivered is just ridiculous. The humour in form of witty lines was decent, the game itself was simple enough to grasp, and a bit too simple blast through, but that is it.

It was a decent addition to The Orange Box, but I would never give it more than £10 alone.
But oh well, I suppose I will just get the "Some gamers still like to think!" standard response when I am not putting Portal on some pinnacle of gaming creativity.

HOLD IT! STOP THE PRESSES! I just came up with some criticism for Portal!

Valve made a wonderfully innovative, hilarious, charming puzzle game with a world-first game mechanic and they didn't make a level editor.

They did make a level editor :P

It's under the Tools tab of Steam, called Source SDK, which contains Hammer, the level editor. It's a bit tricky at first, but if you follow some of the tutorials on the Valve Developer's Wiki and Portal fansites, you should be able to pick it up.

Some of the custom levels are really good, my favourites so far being http://forums.thinkingwithportals.com/viewtopic.php?t=608 and http://forums.thinkingwithportals.com/viewtopic.php?t=723

oh crap the companion cube plush toys have sold out !!!!

Yeeeaaaahhrrr more portal yeaahrrr (wanks into portal on the ground which shoots out of ceiling portal onto my face).

Just kidding, I love portal, but portal fanboys are quickly becoming a nuisance... as all fanboys are.

Interesting. Portal has become so popular that liking is starting to make you a "fanboy" and not liking it makes you edgy.

We shall continue our research into this interesting demonstration of what I like to call "Final Fantasy VII" Syndrome.

Not really, I can understand why people like Portal.

But I have had the experience when people either calls one stupid, Halo kiddie or something equally silly when I or someone else do not acknowledge Portal as the best game ever.

I really think it has more with jumping on bandwagons for or against a game than actually analysing the games for their qualities. I think Halo 3 and Portal actually is a pretty good example. They both are games with strengths and weaknesses, still the majority of the gamer community gave them very different response.

It even went as far as people saying you were not a real gamer if you liked/disliked game X or Y (yes, it was pretty much if you liked Halo or disliked Portal), and I really have to say that it is absolutely silly. Myself I kind of think both of the games got their qualities, they have somewhat different upsides, neither of them are worthless and neither of them is the best game ever.

I honestly have some faith in the team that did Portal. They went about creating the game (after listening to the documentary and reading up on the history of the team) about as right as one can get, and they struck gold, so to speak. And with Valve's history of "more of the same" (see Half-Life 2's game line, each one very similar, but not exact, to the one before) I believe that Portal 2 will get the best of both worlds.

My only worry is the story line. That's a faint worry, as they did a spectacular job for the first game. But after seeing the ending, I wonder where it goes from there. That is, however, my only concern. I had faith Portal would be great, and it met my expectations, and I have faith Portal 2 will meet my new ones.

The reason Portal is so universally loved is simple: there's nothing else like it. There are absolutely no other games that are in any way similar besides the team's original game, which isn't widely-known. The majority of people I've talked to who don't "get" Portal are ones who have only been gamers for a relatively short amount of time and haven't gotten bored of playing the same game with a new color scheme every other week.

When you've played games as long as I have, something like Portal is so refreshing it wouldn't matter if it was running on the Quake 2 engine or something, since originality is something that is so far beyond graphics in terms of importance. The people who don't "get" Portal are the ones to still think a PS3's a better idea than a PS2 because its graphics are super-duper. Forget the fact that the PS2 has about a trillion AAA-rated games, what we need is MOAR BLOOM!!!

They also say things like, "lol whats so great about portal i wouldn't pay more than $15 for it" in-between Halo 3 sessions without realizing that, oh wait, it came in a box with 2 other legendary-quality games and 2 expansion packs and cost me $60, averaging out to $12 each! Or, if you already owned HL2 and Ep1, you paid $20 per game. But then you sell the extras to your friends for $5 each or something and you're still paying very little per title.

For crap sake, Halo 3 has a 4-hour campaign but infinite multiplayer, while Orange Box has about 4 hours (portal) + 5 hours (Ep2) + infinite hours (TF2). And you can add about 30 hours to that if you haven't already played HL2 and Ep1.

I think you are not entirely fair when you say that there is nothing else like Portal. There are tons of puzzle games out there, and several of them that are more challenging.

What Valve did with Portal was to implement elements in a good way rather than innovating them.
And some of your arguments are sort of odd, you are talking about colour schemes, still portal use the same colours all the time, intentionally of course, but it is an argument without any relevance.

You are saying that everyone who does not like portal is bashing it in between Halo 3 matches, in so called "web speak", typing said segment out without capitalization or punctuation in a attempt to enhance the insinuation that they all are stupid.

You claim that I, and others who do not love Portal, only care about graphics and not gameplay, which I find terribly unfair. I am just questioning the claim that the Portal gameplay is unchallenged.

I think Portal's greatest weakness is that it is far too simple, it was way too easy for a puzzle game. It was pretty funny, not hilarious, but admittedly pretty innovative when using a first-person view in a puzzle game.

If anything Valve took several different concepts and mashed them together, with far better graphics than puzzle games have in general.

They did a good job with Portal, but it is just silly when you claim that it is an entirely new concept, while it contains several elements you call flaws in other games, wrap it up with that everyone who criticises Portal does it while playing Halo and can not put a sentence together. I dare say that you do not judge either game for what it actually is, you just decided which one you liked and gave it attributes that generally are counted as good in games.

I would say that implemention will always count more than innovation, and this is why both Portal and Halo are good games (for entirely different reasons, and yes, Portal is a much better single player game), while lets say, the "new" Nintendo box is a pile of shit.

I agree that Portal was too simple. On my first go I completed it without ever having to stop to really think. But other people will have different experiences. I also found it very witty, but never actually laughed out loud at it.

Not that simple games can't still be brilliant. I actually don't mind it when I'm not challenged too much in games, if the storyline and immersion are adequate. Case in point: Bioshock. Problem with Portal is that its exclusively a puzzle game, and the puzzles aren't always that hard. I think Portal is brilliant, just not the second coming of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, nor the best game ever made.

When people create an argument that a game is one of the best games ever made, it is only acceptable for other people to debate against that claim.

You missed my point about the "new color scheme" thing, it's a common expression implying something that has been cheaply refurbished for the sake of looking new while it's actually not. In short, it's something like how you'd feel after playing every EA Sports NHL game back-to-back. People who have been playing games for many years, such as myself, often become very bored with seeing the same thing over and over in every game we play. Almost everything made nowadays is either a sequel or derivative.

Regarding the braindead-mouth-foaming Halo 3 fanboy reference, I wasn't specifically talking about you, this is a long thread and it's not the only one that's been made on the internet for the purpose of saying, "portal was meh". By and large, people who don't "get" portal are people who need things to be flashy and exciting. Other people who don't understand why it's good are ones who haven't considered how much they paid for it, or they haven't played games long enough to recognize something original when they see it, since every game still seems like something new to them.

Here are some of the things I think are good about Portal:
-Features real humor, not "fingerquotes wacky" as yahtzee put it, or poorly written, out-of-place typical game humor
-Central "gimmick" has never been done before (a portal gun)
-Features physics to a degree few games do, and does it well
-Has no significant bugs, unlike many other recent games
-Is the first puzzle game from a company known only for FPS, but it's well done which is a pleasant surprise
-Above all else, it's almost free

Was it easy? Sure. Does that actually mean anything in light of its quality and exceedingly low cost? No.

The argument isn't, "it's the best game ever", the argument is, "it's the best, most original $10 puzzle/FPS game", primarily by virtue of the fact that it's (one of) the only puzzle/fps hybrid(s). Portal is nowhere NEAR what I'd consider the "best" game overall. It's simply one of the most original and unexpectedly well-made ones in recent memory. It's like this, Valve has never produced something that wasn't a high-quality blockbuster, so when people heard they were working on a puzzle game, their reaction was something like your reaction might be if you heard that PopCap was making a hardcore FPS. Beyond this, it was also exceedingly well-made and polished, even if it was rather short and easy.

Basically, it can be summed up like this: What was the last first-person physics puzzle game you played? Now let me ask you, what was the last fps game you played that featured things you've never, ever seen before in another game?

(Since you don't seem to be familiar with common english expressions, no offense intended, my point above is: I can't think of another fp/physics puzzle game, and I also can't think of an FPS game that was original. So Portal was extremely original, which is something you only see very rarely.)

Widell, among others:
I think Portal's greatest weakness is that it is far too simple, it was way too easy for a puzzle game.

Is there anyone here (or anywhere for that matter) who's managed to get the "Aperture Science" achievement for gold medals in all 18 of the challenge puzzles?

Once you've got those gold medals, THEN I'll listen to criticism about it being too easy.

Widell:
I think Portal's greatest weakness is that it is far too simple, it was way too easy for a puzzle game.

alexhayter86:
I agree that Portal was too simple.

Obviously neither of you went on to the "challenge" modes. Looking back, I realize that the gameplay of the entire storyline mode was just a warm up. Beating the bonus levels is harder, but not that difficult. However, getting "Aperture Science" awards on all 6 challenge levels will BREAK YOUR MIND it is so good.

Also, I'd recommend replaying the storyline with developer commentary on, if you are interested in level design and other background info on the development of the game.

Razzle Bathbone:

Widell, among others:
I think Portal's greatest weakness is that it is far too simple, it was way too easy for a puzzle game.

Is there anyone here (or anywhere for that matter) who's managed to get the "Aperture Science" achievement for gold medals in all 18 of the challenge puzzles?

Once you've got those gold medals, THEN I'll listen to criticism about it being too easy.

Hah hah, you beat me to it. Yes, I beat them all. Unfortunately, before I knew about the challenges, I watched a youtube video of someone beating the last level in like 5 portals, which blew my mind. All the others I figured out on my own.