Portal Reloaded Introduces Third Portal That Lets You Travel Through Time
It's been a whole decade since we first leapt through the portals for Valve's Portal 2. To honour this monumental milestone, a new mod has added a third portal to the fan-favourite puzzler. Apart from Valve allowing ClockStone to work on Bridge Constructor Portal in 2017, the Portal name has been confined to the obscure depths of development hell for the past 10 years. With players keen to keep the portals open, the Portal Reloaded mod gives you a whole new way to play.
Despite continued calls for a third game, it doesn't look like Valve is going to go back to Portal in the near future. Added to this, Portal 2 ended on an oddly happy note as the sinister GLaDOS AI released protagonist Chell. Even if Valve's hungry fan base would probably prefer another Half-Life, let's not underestimate the love of Portal. With the 10th anniversary of Portal 2 officially here, now is the perfect time to release Portal Reloaded and a much-hyped third portal.
What is the Portal Reloaded mod?
Live now on Steam, Jannis Brinkman's Portal Reloaded promises to be one for fans of the series. The mod adds a tonne of new content across two timelines - one in the present day and the other 20 years into the future. Alongside 25 new puzzles, over 100 voice lines, and original music, the biggest pull is the mechanic of a third portal (represented by a green rectangle).
Explaining what you can expect in Portal Reloaded, Brinkman said, "Awoken from stasis by an automated AI, you are expected to complete a very special test course. Within the depths of Aperture Science, secluded from the rest of the facility, lies a previously unknown and long-forgotten testing track. This mod is targeted at portal veterans, who are familiar with the gameplay of the main series and want to expand their horizons".
While this sounds like a plot for a Portal prequel/Portal 3 on its own, it's important to note this is not in the official Portal canon. Be warned, Portal Reloaded probably isn't one for casual players. The complex mechanics reveal that you can mess with objects in the future without affecting their present selves. However, playing with something in the present will also move it in the future. This means you can't bring a cube from the present into the future, but you can hypothetically bring a cube from the future into the past. Keeping up? Nope, neither are we!
What's next for Portal?
Even if Valve seems unsure of what to do with Portal, the modding community is keeping it alive and well. Alongside Portal Reloaded, a group of fans are tinkering away on Portal 2: Desolation. Taking the base 2011 game, Emberspark Games has modded a new story that follows Diana Mendez. Desolation is set in the '80s-inspired Aperture Science ‘Industrial’ complex, where players suit up as the cybernetically-enhanced Mendez. Alongside a first gameplay trailer, the mod's site explains how Diana will "embark on a perilous journey that will see her uncover Aperture’s mysterious past". It's all pretty standard stuff...with a Portal twist.
Valve had once been working on an ambitious prequel called Aperture Camera. Here, there was a new mechanic where players would photograph objects and then reposition them to solve various puzzles. Footage made its way online last year as a "what could've been", suggesting that Valve has officially abandoned the project. Even if Portal 3 is just a pipe dream that's out of reach, at least the modding community is keeping the spirit of the series alive. Who knows, maybe Brinkman can make an unofficial Portal 3?
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