Portal 2 is a 2011 first person puzzle-platform game developed by Valve for Windows, macOS, Linux, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360. The retail versions and PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions were distributed by Electronic Arts. A port for the Nintendo Switch was released as part of the Portal: Companion Collection in June 2022. Like the original Portal (2007), players solve puzzles by placing portals and teleporting between them. Portal 2 adds features including excursion funnels (called tractor beams in files), lasers, light bridges, and paint-like gels that alter player movement or allow portals to be placed on any surface. In the single-player campaign, players control Chell, who navigates the dilapidated Aperture Science Enrichment Center during its reconstruction by the supercomputer GLaDOS (Ellen McLain); new characters include robot Wheatley (Stephen Merchant) and Aperture founder Cave Johnson (J. K. Simmons). In the new cooperative mode, players solve puzzles together as robots Atlas and P-Body (both voiced by Dee Bradley Baker). Jonathan Coulton and the National produced songs for the game. Valve announced Portal 2 in March 2010, and promoted it with alternate reality games including the Potato Sack, a collaboration with several independent game developers. After release, Valve released downloadable content and a simplified map editor to allow players to create and share levels. Portal 2 received critical acclaim for its gameplay, balanced learning curve, pacing, dark humor, writing, and acting. Like its predecessor, it has been described as one of the greatest video games ever made by numerous publications and critics.
Gameplay Portal 2 is a first-person perspective puzzle game. The player takes the role of Chell in the single-player campaign, as one of two robots—ATLAS and P-Body—in the cooperative campaign, or as a simplistic humanoid icon in community-developed puzzles. Characters can withstand limited damage but will die after sustained injury. The goal of both campaigns is to explore the Aperture Science Laboratory—a complicated, malleable mechanized maze. While some parts of the game takes place in modular test chambers with clearly defined entrances and exits, other parts occur in behind-the-scenes areas where the objective is less clear. The initial tutorials guide the player through movement controls and interactions with their environment, and in the case of the cooperative campaign, interactions with the other player. Gameplay revolves around the use of the Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device, which can create a pair of two portals on suitable surfaces through which the player or objects can pass through. Characters can use these portals to move between rooms or to "fling" objects or themselves across a distance.
Additional game elements not featured in the original Portal include Thermal Discouragement Beams (lasers), Excursion Funnels (tractor beams), and Hard Light Bridges, all of which can be transmitted through portals. Aerial Faith Plates catapult the player and objects through the air. The player must disable sentient, lethal turrets or avoid their line of sight. The Weighted Storage Cube has been redesigned, and there are new types: Redirection Cubes, which have prismatic lenses that redirect laser beams, spherical Edgeless Safety Cubes, an antique version of the Weighted Storage Cube used in the underground levels, and a cube-turret hybrid created by Wheatley after taking control of Aperture. The heart-decorated Weighted Companion Cube appears briefly. Early demonstrations included Pneumatic Diversity Vents, shown to transport objects and transfer suction power through portals, but these do not appear in the final game. The typical objective of a test chamber or level is to use the portal gun and provided gameplay elements to open a locked exit door and progress to the next chamber. Paint-like gels (which are dispensed from pipes and can be transported through portals) impart certain properties to surfaces or objects coated with them. Players can use orange Propulsion Gel to cross surfaces more quickly, blue Repulsion Gel to bounce from a surface, and white Conversion Gel to allow surfaces to accept portals. Only one type of gel can affect a certain surface at a time. Some surfaces, such as grilles, cannot be coated with a gel. Water can block or wash away gels, returning the surface or object to its normal state. In the cooperative campaign, two players can use the same console with a split screen, or can use a separate computer or console; Windows, Mac OS X, and PlayStation 3 users can play with each other regardless of platform. Both player-characters are robots equipped with independent portal guns, a portal pair placed by either player is usable by both. Most chambers lack strict structure, and require players to use both sets of portals for laser or funnel redirection, launches, and other maneuvers. The game provides voice communication between players, and online players can temporarily enter a split-screen view to help coordinate actions. Players can "ping" to draw the other player's attention to walls or objects, start countdown timers for synchronized actions, and perform joint gestures such as waving or hugging. The game tracks which chambers each player has completed and allows players to replay chambers they have completed with new partners. Portal 2's lead writer Erik Wolpaw estimates each campaign to be about six hours long. Portal 2 contains in-game commentary from the game developers, writers, and artists. The commentary, which is unlocked per completed chapter, appears on node icons scattered through the chambers. According to Valve, each of the single-player and cooperative campaigns is 2 to 2.5 times as long as the campaign in Portal, with the overall game five times as long.
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