Portal 2
Valve · Puzzle, Platformer
Overview
The "Perpetual Testing Initiative" has been expanded to allow you to design co-op puzzles for you and your friends!
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Portal 2 draws from the award-winning formula of innovative gameplay, story, and music that earned the original Portal over 70 industry accolades and created a cult following.
The single-player portion of Portal 2 introduces a cast of dynamic new characters, a host of fresh puzzle elements, and a much larger set of devious test chambers. Players will explore never-before-seen areas of the Aperture Science Labs and be reunited with GLaDOS, the occasionally murderous computer companion who guided them through the original game.
The game’s two-player cooperative mode features its own entirely separate campaign with a unique story, test chambers, and two new player characters. This new mode forces players to reconsider everything they thought they knew about portals. Success will require them to not just act cooperatively, but to think cooperatively.
Product Features
- Extensive single player: Featuring next generation gameplay and a wildly-engrossing story.
- Complete two-person co-op: Multiplayer game featuring its own dedicated story, characters, and gameplay.
- Advanced physics: Allows for the creation of a whole new range of interesting challenges, producing a much larger but not harder game.
- Original music.
- Massive sequel: The original Portal was named 2007's Game of the Year by over 30 publications worldwide.
- Editing Tools: Portal 2 editing tools will be included.
From the game's Steam store page.
THE GAMEQ VERDICT9,997 reviews analyzed
What players are actually saying
1. Summary
Fifteen years after release, as dozens of reviewers point out, Portal 2 still gets near-unanimous praise: 98.5% of these reviews recommend it, and in no week between February and September 2026 did that share drop below 96%. The writing and voice cast (GLaDOS, Wheatley, Cave Johnson) come up more than anything else. Next come puzzles that add gels, lasers, bridges and funnels to the portal gun, a story and ending that several players say made them cry, and a separate two-player co-op campaign. Some reviewers are playing it for the first time in 2026 and say it holds up; others are replaying it on PC after growing up with it on Xbox 360 or PS3. The Steam Workshop and level editor keep long-term players busy, and deep sales make it an easy buy.
Complaints are few and scattered. Co-op draws the most specific one: some achievements require playing with friends who have never played before, and some players simply have no one to play with. Smaller groups mention hunting for the one surface that takes a portal, technical leftovers (a menu that can't be closed, a black screen after the credits, co-op disconnects, no macOS version), and motion sickness with no field-of-view slider. Players disagree on two points. One is puzzle difficulty: some needed walkthroughs, a few found it too easy. The other is whether the jokier tone beats the first game's quiet, creepy atmosphere.
2. What keeps coming up
What players praise
Writing, humor and voice actingHigh
16% of all reviews (1,584) bring up the humor, writing, dialogue or voice acting, more than any other topic. Players name the cast directly: Ellen McLain's GLaDOS, Stephen Merchant's Wheatley and J.K. Simmons's Cave Johnson, whose rant about lemons gets quoted over and over. "The writing is by far the greatest point of it," one long-time player writes, and another sums up GLaDOS's insults with "GLaDOS called me garbage for like 8 hours straight and i genuinely thanked her for it lol." The insults themselves ("fatty, adopted") have turned into a running joke in the reviews. Players also notice smaller touches, like Wheatley's extra monologues when you stall in one spot. A minority find the humor too much, which is covered under the Portal 1 comparison below.
Puzzle design and new mechanicsHigh
The puzzles or test chambers come up in 14% of reviews (1,400), almost all approvingly. The usual praise is about pacing: each mechanic (lasers, light bridges, excursion funnels, faith plates, the three gels) is introduced gently and then combined. Reviewers describe the moment a solution clicks after being stuck. "The puzzles are smart without feeling unfair, the writing is sharp," one reviewer writes, and another says "Puzzles may start out a bit insulting, but they quickly escalate to an engaging level, and never go over the top." Several players who say they normally avoid puzzle games call this the exception. How hard the puzzles are is disputed, and that is covered in its own section.
Story, ending and musicHigh
12% of reviews (1,172) praise the story, plot or lore, and the ending gets its own following: the turret opera, the credits song "Want You Gone" and the final moon shot come up again and again as the moment players remember. "the ending always gets me," one replayer writes. Players like how the story moves through old Aperture and fills in Cave Johnson and Caroline. Others say the soundtrack reacts to what you do in a chamber. A few reviewers who were spoiled beforehand advise newcomers to go in blind. Not everyone agrees: a handful call the ending underwhelming or the final boss too easy.
The co-op campaignMedium
6% of reviews (643) mention co-op or playing with a friend, partner, sibling or child. Players treat it as a second full campaign with its own puzzles built around two players, and they mostly talk about it with affection: trolling each other, arguing over who stood in the wrong spot, finishing it with a parent or partner. "the co-op campaign will test the strength of your friendships," one player writes, and another says "The co-op alone could carry a separate game." Parents describe playing it with young children. The catch, needing someone to play with, is listed under frustrations.
It still holds upMedium
About 3% of reviews (293) go out of their way to say the game has aged well, one of them simply calling it "still good in 2026." Players who first played it on Xbox 360, PS3 or Switch describe replaying it on PC, and first-timers say it beats many recent games. "Some older games really show their age. Portal 2 just... doesn't," one reviewer writes. Graphics come up in 2.5% of reviews (247), mostly as surprise at how good the lighting and environments still look. One player notes the pre-rendered cutscenes now look soft at 1440p.
Workshop, level editor and modsMedium
2% of reviews (204) praise the Workshop, the built-in chamber editor or mods such as Portal Revolution and Portal Reloaded. Players with hundreds of hours often say this is where their time went: building chambers for friends, playing community maps after the campaign, or speedrunning. "Thanks to the Steam Workshop, the replay value is infinite!" one reviewer writes. A couple of map makers say the built-in editor is limited and point to the BEEMod tool or Hammer instead.
Low price on saleLow
About 2% of reviews (193) mention price, nearly always to say it is a bargain: players report buying the game or the two-game bundle for one to three dollars on sale. "The game goes 90% off at every sale," an Australian reviewer notes. A few suggest waiting for a sale rather than paying the full price, and one negative review says the puzzles were too easy to justify $6.29.
Runs on almost anythingLow
About 1% of reviews (130) say it runs well on old or weak hardware: school PCs, Chromebooks, a 2017 laptop, onboard graphics. "runs great on potato hardware," one reviewer writes, and players with modern systems report high, steady frame rates at maximum settings. Two negative reviews report lag and crashes on laptops, so this is not universal.
Where players are split
Puzzle difficulty and walkthroughsMedium
About 3% of reviews (274) say the puzzles were hard, confusing or made them feel stupid, and around 1% (86) say they used a walkthrough or YouTube. A lot of this is self-mockery from players who otherwise loved the game. Reviews that hold the difficulty against the game often come from players who stopped early: "I have the type of brain that simply cannot grasp many of the puzzles," one writes, and several early quitters call it too hard to continue. A smaller group says the opposite. "it feels too easy overall," a co-op pair writes, and a few experienced puzzle players call the chambers linear. Several reviewers mention that the difficulty jumps in the later chapters, especially Wheatley's test chambers.
How it compares with the first PortalMedium
About 1% of reviews (97) say Portal 2 is better than the original, usually because it is longer, has more mechanics and more story, and adds co-op. Other reviewers disagree on tone. They miss the first game's isolation and quiet menace, and find the sequel's constant jokes tiring. "I think it was a huge mistake to turn Portal 2 into a comedy," one writes, and another negative review says it feels "written by childish millennials." Even one fan who recommends it warns that the humor can feel dated to anyone tired of "millennial" writing. Players on the other side admit the trade and accept it: one says the first game's atmosphere is gone but that it is "completely worth it just because of how absolutely hilarious this game is."
Pacing in the later chaptersLow
About 1% of reviews (105) call parts of the game tedious, repetitive or dragged out. Players point to the old Aperture section and the run of gel chambers before the finale. One player says the game "feels a little dragged out in the last 2-3 chapters," and another calls everything after chapter seven "a dragging snoozefest." A few players say the opposite: that it is short, or that once the two campaigns are done there is nothing left without the Workshop.
The gelsLow
The paint-like gels split a small group of players. Some name the gel chambers as their favorites, while a few say the gel "doesn't feel like it belongs here," got boring, or made puzzles obvious ("run on blue, jump on orange" over and over, as one negative review puts it).
Linux supportLow
Linux players disagree. A few say it runs natively and "just works." A few negative reviews say it won't run for them: one calls it unplayable on Linux Mint, and another says Steam support would not help. The macOS situation is clearer and is listed under frustrations.
What frustrates players
Co-op needs a partner, and some achievements need new onesLow
About a dozen reviews complain that two achievements ("Professor Portal" and "Friends List With Benefits") require teaching co-op to people who have never played it. That is hard to do on a 15-year-old game, and players say it forces them to recruit strangers. "they force you to beg strangers on the Internet for hugs to complete them," one writes, and another calls one achievement "essentially a pyramid scheme" and gives the game a thumbs down for it. Other reviewers simply have no one to play the co-op campaign with, and a few find random partners disconnect halfway. A few players ask for cross-platform co-op so they can play with friends on consoles.
Hunting for the right surfaceLow
A small number of players say the hard part was finding where they were allowed to shoot a portal, not working out the solution. The bigger rooms in the later chapters make this worse. "It really is a white paint simulator," one writes; another says "no one likes spending a minute or so looking for the tiny white wall." A few early quitters and negative reviews give this as the reason they reached for guides or gave up.
Old bugs and co-op technical problemsLow
Each of these comes from a handful of reviews at most. One player found a menu that opens by mistake and won't go away: "if you accidently type r instead of e it opens a menu you can't close." A few players say the game sits on a black screen or crashes after the final scene instead of returning to the menu. Co-op players report connections that drop mid-game and no way to reset local co-op progress to play again with someone new ("Impossible to reset local coop progress."), and one says a "No Steam Logon" error keeps kicking them out. On handhelds, one player says Steam Deck gestures broke on the last co-op puzzle, and another says split-screen controller assignment on a Legion Go made the game unplayable.
No macOS versionLow
One Mac player explains that the game won't run on macOS 10.15 or later because Apple disabled 32-bit support, and another calls the loss of Mac support "a real blow." A couple of players run it through CrossOver instead.
Motion sickness and no FOV sliderLow
A few players warn that the flinging and falling made them sick, and some ask for a field-of-view setting: "I just wish the game had fov options." One player also asks for a brighter setting because dark areas were hard to see.
Frequent loading screensLow
A handful of players find the loading screens between chamber sections too frequent or too long, and a few call them the only thing they disliked. One player lists "the incredibly frequent loading screens" as a nitpick but adds that they are brief on modern hardware.
3. The player conversation
The conversation is affectionate and relaxed. Most reviews are short, and many are quotes, memes ("I AM NOT A MORON," "SPAAACE," the lemon speech) or jokes about wanting to date GLaDOS, rather than critiques. The longer reviews come from two groups: people finally playing it for the first time in 2026, who are often surprised it lives up to its reputation, and replayers who grew up with it on consoles and now play it on PC with partners or children. 2% of reviews (190) ask for a Portal 3 or joke that Valve can't count to three.
Players who stop within the first few hours tend to say the puzzles are too hard or that puzzle games are not for them. A smaller group of players who loved the first Portal object to the comedy. Players with hundreds of hours write about the editor, Workshop maps and speedrunning. The friend-locked achievement complaint comes from achievement hunters at every level of playtime. Technical complaints come from specific setups (Mac, Linux, handhelds, local co-op) rather than the general player base.
Every week from February to September 2026 sat between 96% and 100% positive. The busiest weeks were late June and early July 2026, when several reviewers mention picking it up in the Steam summer sale. A few reviewers also mark the game's 15th anniversary in April 2026.
4. What the developers could do
- Fix co-op connections and progress. Players report random disconnects, a "No Steam Logon" error that kicks them out mid-game, a broken Steam Deck gesture on the final co-op puzzle, and no way to reset local co-op progress to replay with someone new.
- Fix the gesture-menu softlock and the post-credits hang. One player says pressing R by mistake opens a menu that won't close, and a few say the game stays on a black screen or crashes after the final scene instead of returning to the menu.
- Remove or rework the two friend-gated co-op achievements. Several reviewers say "Professor Portal" and "Friends List With Benefits" force them to find strangers new to the game, and one gives the game a thumbs down for it alone.
- Restore macOS support and improve Linux reliability. A Mac player says the game does not run on macOS 10.15 or later, and some Linux players say it won't run for them even though others say it works fine.
- Add a field-of-view slider and comfort options. Players who get motion sick ask for FOV control, and one asks for a brighter display option for dark areas.
- Make portal-ready surfaces easier to spot in the larger late-game rooms. The "white paint simulator" complaint and the guide use that follows it come from players who knew the solution but could not find the one usable panel.
- Add chamber select and simpler setup for local and handheld co-op. One player notes you cannot pick individual chambers to replay for achievements, and handheld owners describe split-screen controller assignment as the reason they could not play together.
