Portal 2

Development Info Prototype Info Prerelease Info Notes Unused LinesCave Johnson has a lot of unused lines. Unused Voice LinesIt's too big. Too big. Wanna go home. Wanna go to earth. Unused MapsAll aboard the fling_train! Unused TexturesCAUTION: This article is radioactive. Unused ModelsThe robots of Aperture do get a bit quirky at night.

Unused Sounds#

Sticky gel#

Even though the sticky gel was cut, the sounds for it still exist in the final game.

Portal Leftovers#

Deleted Sounds#

Sounds that were left over in the slack space of all the VPKs the game has.

Unused Sound Scripts#

There is a soundscript file named npc_sounds_chicken.txt with five clucking sounds, a squawk, and a startled noise listed. According to a comment in the script, "strider footsteps are heard everywhere in map". These were seemingly intended for the cut F-Stop chicken enemy.

Unused Music#

Unused Mechanics#

Paint Gun#

During development, the developers used a paintgun for gels, similar to the student game called Tag: The Power of Paint, in which the player could use a gun to paint the environment. The Repulsion and Propulsion Gels both originate from that game. Developer commentary mentions that the player would be given the gun, so they could paint the ground and walls to complete test chambers. The paint gun was also experimented with for co-op, in the form of "2guns" chambers, where one player would have a paint gun and the other a portal gun, and they could swap them.

Ultimately, it was decided to remove the paint gun in order to avoid the complexity of having to teach the player a new tool, in favor of simply using the portal gun to redirect paint coming out of the already-established cube dispensers. According to code comments, it was later planned to be brought back in DLC2, but this didn't end up happening.

Many paint gun-related assets remain in the game's files, including HUD icons, particles and console commands. The entity itself has been stripped from every retail version of the game however, with a single exception: the initial PS3 release of the game, which included a working version of the paint gun on the disc (it is removed if any updates are installed). In all other versions of the game these entities are no longer implemented and will not spawn, despite appearing in the Hammer editor.

This idea would eventually be revived in the standalone release of the Aperture Tag mod in 2014. The paint gun seen there is not a C++ entity, though, but simply changes the Portal Gun model and uses standard Source entities to make it shoot paint.

The paint gun is properly present in leaked prototype builds from February 2010 onwards, which also include a fully playable version of the 2Guns co-op course.

Sticky/"Adhesion" Gel#

A gel which, when used with portals, would allow the player to walk on the walls and ceiling of test chambers. While this may sound neat, it proved to be disorienting and cause motion sickness among playtesters. This led to it being cut from the game and eventually replaced by reflection gel in the PeTI update. The gel is purple, however it is not known whether this would be the final color. All of the Sticky Gel-related textures and particles remain in the final game. Because of this, several community map-makers have tried (with varying success) to implement it in their maps. A video of the leftovers (albeit after the effects were removed) can be found here. It was later shown by Valve with the effects working in a presentation here.

The code for sticky gel is still in the game, although disabled by default, and can be re-enabled with this mod (archived download) that requires an older version of the game. The fully functional gel can be seen in prototype builds.

It is often referred to by the community as "Adhesion Gel", but has never been officially called this, with official sources simply referring to it as "sticky gel" or "stick paint".

Reflection Gel#

An unused gel type that reflects lasers. Added in the PeTI update, and can be added into a map by setting the Paint Type keyvalue to 1 (labeled as Stick in Hammer). It replaces the sticky gel that was dummied out before the PeTI update was released, although it still contains all of the sticky gel effects that made it into the final game, notably preventing speed gel painted cubes from sliding on it.

The gel uses the same color as conversion gel when painted on a surface, but the blob texture is separate and can be customized in maps. Due to this and the fact that it is still usable (to some effect), it has been used by some community map-makers in their maps, with only minor problems with animation and textures. A video of the gel can be found here.

2Guns Game Mode#

Watch on YouTubeThis cut game mode was made for co-op, where one player would have a Portal Gun and the other would have a Paint Gun. Players would be able to swap guns by standing near each other and pressing a certain key; the indicator texture for this can still be found in the game files, though it appears to be a very obvious placeholder.

The mode can be enabled in the final game by making or renaming a co-op map to contain the string 2guns anywhere in the filename. However, the Paint Gun was compiled out of Portal 2, so the game mode can't be used properly in most versions of the game (player 1 will spawn with a portal gun and player 2 will spawn with nothing).

However, it is fully functional when played in early PS3 builds of the game which include the paint gun. It is also functional in the mod Portal 2 Community Edition, which restored the paint gun.

Schrödinger's Cube#

This needs some investigation. Discuss ideas and findings on the talk page. Specifically: From some brief testing, re-enabling the cubes using the method below does not entirely work on the newest version of the game (8928 as of writing this). The laser output on the second cube does not rotate with the cube but instead always comes out in the same direction.

The Schrödinger's Cube is an unused Reflection Cube variant introduced in the Peer Review DLC. It is implemented as cube type 5 on the existing prop_weighted_cube entity. The cubes would be placed in pairs and linked together. When a laser enters one cube, it will come out of the cube it is linked to. Fizzling or painting one cube will also do the same to the other one (a behavior which is mentioned in The Final Hours of Portal 2). Additional skin slots were added to the reflection cube model and are used for these, though the textures themselves are missing.

While fully implemented in the game, the Schrödinger's Cube is not usable in maps, as Valve hardcoded them to change into normal reflection cubes on spawn. As a result, they are unable to link together, and do not do anything even if the cube type is changed mid-map, though they will use the correct skins in this case. It's possible to re-enable them by editing server.dll using a hex editor, and changing the byte at 0x3EE2F2 from 0x02 to 0x05. This tells the game to "change" Schrödinger's Cubes into themselves (type 5) instead of turning them into reflection cubes (type 2). The mod Portal 2: Community Edition has also re-enabled the cubes by default, and mod Portal: Revolution expands on the idea.

The Schrödinger's Cube is unrelated to the used "Schrodinger's Catch" achievement. According to comments in the code, Valve intended to re-enable them in the Perpetual Testing Initiative update. Clearly they forgot to do that.

Unused Entities#

To do: Parts of this section could use more information, and a good rewrite.

Paint Fizzler#

An unused variant of the Fizzler which destroys paint passing through. The entity itself (trigger_paint_cleanser) is used in-game to prevent using paint in certain locations, but it never appears as a Fizzler. An unused particle (paint_cleanser.pcf) is present in the game's files as a red version of the Fizzler from the original Portal. Additionally, Paint Fizzler instances can be found in the instances/gameplay folder.

Hover Turret#

An unused turret with the unique ability to shoot a light blue laser that causes damage to the player. Unlike the Thermal Discouragement Beam, the laser does not impede the player's movement and does not affect the game environment or mechanics. The Turret can move while in position, rotating and tilting itself to reach and attack the player. The turret does not appear in any of the final game's maps, but can be spawned using the developer console. When spawned in the final game, the lack of a model means that it shows up as a bright blue "ERROR" sign, although it still retains its laser function and the glow from the 'eye'.

Pre-release screenshots show that the turret originally didn't hover, but was attached to the ceiling via a wire, and used the model of the all of original Personality Cores from Portal. It's eye and overall model would change color depending on the situation, and it could be carried around like a normal Turret. If dropped, it would disable and shutdown like a normal turret, however it also explode shortly after into unused Futbol Chunks.

Players have been able to get the model and the Textures back into the game files making the NPC playable.

The Hover Turret also has a lot missing voicelines with slightly unusual audio file names. The original sounds are missing and is unknown what they would have been. The files are referenced in the script file npc_sounds_hover_turret.txt. The Early Portal 2 Test Intro features Hover Turrets, one which spots the Player as they fly through a burst tube the other ones beside (which don't see the player) disprove the first Hover Turret. This is one of the possibly only times we hear a Hover Turret. It is possible that Richard Lord voiced them in the video as his voice for the Core Hub era cores (like the Paranoia Core) sound similar if not identical.

Futbols#

The game has coded and modeled entities for small fragile spheres called "futbols". It comes in two versions: glass, and bomb. There are special spawner entities, with models, for both. The bomb version was reused for the redirectable bombs in the final game with a different model. Judging by the map "mp_futbol_01" these are very likely remains of the Competitive Multiplayer Portal 2, which was reworked into Co-op very early on as the matches quickly became hectic and confusing. The objective would have been to redirect a bomb of sorts into other players using portals.

Point Indicators#

Watch on YouTubeThe game has an unused entity called item_nugget which creates a spinning collectible that can be touched to pick it up. The item will respawn after an amount of time set in Hammer, and can have point values ranging from 1-25. The specified number of points will be added to the player's "score", which be seen only in co-op mode if a key is bound to +score and used to open the scoreboard.

Puzzle Maker#

Nintendo Switch#

Puzzlemaker is not accessible on Switch, but all its files are still present.

Devtest Puzzle#

Present in SteamApps\common\Portal 2\sdk_content\puzzles is devtest.p2c, a Perpetual Testing Initiative custom puzzle made by the developers to test the editor. You can play and edit it by copying the file into SteamApps\common\Portal 2\portal2\puzzles\your_steam_id. It appears as a nameless entry under Create Test Chambers. It has no image, and appears to have most items available in the editor placed in a room the same size as, and obviously based on, the blank template. Several of the items are missing connections. This was likely done because the level was only meant to test the editor rather than gameplay; these items appear to have had the same settings in the editor version this map was made in.

P2C Format Differences#

The devtest puzzle's "Version" line (which is the version of the editor the puzzle was last saved in) has a value of 9. The earliest public release of the Puzzlemaker had a version number of 12, indicating that this map was made in an early version of the editor. Upon loading the map, the Puzzlemaker will convert it through each consecutive version up to 14 (the latest version), creating a backup of the puzzle before each conversion. By comparing these backups, it is possible to determine roughly what was changed in each editor version.

Further information can be gathered from function names in the Mac binaries and debugging symbols included with the leaked 2014 licensee build of Portal 2. This reveals that, oddly, no conversion paths for versions 8 or earlier appear to exist. Loading a puzzle with one of these versions will simply update the version number while performing no other conversions.

v9 -> v10#

Floor buttons, cubes, and paint splats originally used separate item IDs per type! These are merged together into the final IDs during this conversion. Perhaps this is when the concept of SubTypes was introduced as a whole?

{|class="wikitable" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0"

!v9 !v10 |- |ITEM_BUTTON_WEIGHTED
ITEM_BUTTON_CUBE
ITEM_BUTTON_SPHERE |ITEM_BUTTON_FLOOR |- |ITEM_CUBE_WEIGHTED
ITEM_CUBE_COMPANION
ITEM_CUBE_REFLECTOR
ITEM_CUBE_SPHERE |ITEM_CUBE |- |ITEM_PAINT_BOUNCE
ITEM_PAINT_SPEED
ITEM_PAINT_PORTAL
ITEM_PAINT_WATER |ITEM_PAINT_SPLAT |} Notably, the items already had their respective "type" properties prior to the conversion, indicating that those would have swapped the item between multiple IDs - a potential disaster for editor mods like BEE2 had it shipped, as this likely would have prevented custom items from utilizing the type dropdowns.

v10 -> v11#

Names of some metadata fields are altered. These are not present in the devtest puzzle, so this behavior is not observable with it.

{|class="wikitable" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0"

!v10 !v11 |- |TimeStamp |Timestamp_Created |- |UGCHandle |FileID |}

v11 -> v12#

ITEM_GLASS is converted to ITEM_BARRIER. No references to "ITEM_GRATING" exist anywhere, so this was presumably the point when Grating was implemented. Oddly, the "extent" handle item for glass was already called ITEM_BARRIER_EXTENT prior to this conversion.

This is the version that the editor first released with.

v12 -> v13#

The voxel format has been redesigned. Previously, each voxel in the chamber was stored as its own KeyValue block, with subkeys defining if it was solid and the portalability of each side. The new format instead splits solidity and portalability on each axis into separate KeyValue blocks which effectively act as 3 dimensional arrays, sorted by Z level, then by Y level, with each Y row finally storing a series of 1 and 0 characters corresponding to the soliditiy/portalability state at each X position. This drastically reduces the size of puzzle files.

When this version was introduced is not known for certain, as archived builds of the game from this time are incomplete CEG protected copies that cannot be run. However, evidence seems to point towards it being introduced in the co-op update (the same time as version 14) - the educational version of Portal 2 appears to have been forked off of the version directly before the co-op update, and it still uses version 12.

v13 -> v14#

Co-op entrance/exit doors are added. Both are saved with connection count and Start Open properties, despite the fact that the co-op exit actually uses Start Locked and the entrance doesn't have any properties at all. Two additional CONNECTION_BARRIER_ANCHOR_TO_EXTENT connections are also added to link the respective singleplayer and co-op doors together.

This version was introduced in the co-op update, thus why all of its changes are related to co-op support.

Resave#

Upon resaving the devtest puzzle in the latest version of the editor, several additional changes occur. These are not explicitly part of a conversion path in the code, but likely just a result of the editor updating saved metadata and items to reflect their current internal behaviors.

• The map title, description, etc. lines are added.
• Connection Visibility properties are added (co-op update feature).
• The door visibility properties are added (co-op update feature).
• Corridor ID properties are added - it seems there was no corridor randomization at the time the devtest puzzle was made, or perhaps no corridors at all, as unused early editor models for the entrance and exit door items show catwalk stairs (like in the elevator rooms) directly behind them.
• The funnel and cube dropper (which have inputs) both have connection counts of 0, which are changed to the correct 1 after a resave.
• Cube Droppers have the non-deletable flag, which is removed.
• Cube Droppers' item_fall_straight_down property is added.
• Track Platforms' starting positions, travel distances, and travel directions are set, though the properties themselves were present before.
• Barrier Type is added to Glass.
• The Piston Platform auto-trigger property is added, and the bottom/top levels are both increased by 1.
• Gel Droppers have a "vertical alignment" property, which is removed. This would presumably be set depending on whether it was on the ceiling dropping gel straight down, or on walls launching it out. The Allow Streaks and paint_export_type properties are also added.
• Connection count and Start Open are removed from the Co-op entrance door.
• Start Open is changed to Start Locked on the Co-op exit door.

Unused Puzzle Elements#

The folder portal2_dlc2/materials/puzzlemaker/palette contains all of the item and GUI icons, plus several extra items not used in-game. There exist icons for a crusher, a large Faith Plate, an auto-portal area titled "fixed_portal_door", and a transparent picture of a panel titled "panel_door".

Unused GUI Icons#

There's also some unused GUI icons, being an error symbol (which you shouldn't see usually), a crappily drawn "Budget Error" and "Budget Warning" icon (likely related to the unused "budget bar" which would fill up as you add more test elements), and a "pin button" being an icon of a dollar sign.

Unused Text#

Pirate Speak#

Added in an update on October 31, 2018 according to SteamDB, Portal 2 has translation files for a pirate speak "language", being one of several Valve products to include this. It doesn't appear in the list of available languages in Steam and can only be enabled via command line arguments (-language pirate). Only some text is changed, with others either using their default English strings or not appearing at all.

None of the audible voice lines are translated, but subtitles are.

Challenge Mode#

All single-player maps have proper map names, including ones not normally playable in Challenge Mode. These maps and their names are listed below. The map names are stored in Steam\SteamApps\common\Portal 2\update\resource\basemodui_tu_english.txt.

In addition, if the player adds those maps to the Challenge Mode map list (Steam\SteamApps\common\Portal 2\portal2_dlc1\challenge_maplist.txt), the game makes use of those map names in the Challenge Mode menu (except the Credits map, which never appears). They are fully playable although they lack dedicated goal points. The "Level Completed" screen will come up when the player hits the level transition trigger. The Steam server correctly records the player's times and scores. The Community Data chart is also available on these maps, with the somewhat expected number of Fewest Portals records.

Co-op Advanced Chambers#

Located with the names of the five co-op courses is a sixth, titled "Advanced Chambers". This is overwritten by the Art Therapy title when Peer Review is installed, but remains in the base game's localization files. It seems that the advanced chambers concept from the first Portal was planned to make a comeback for co-op, but was ultimately cut.

"P2COOP_TrackName_6"    "ADVANCED CHAMBERS"

The co-op transition VScript includes logic for handling a sixth course, which is only used for the credits in the final game, and is possibly a leftover from this.

Unused Chapter Config#

In the cfg folder, there are several unused files titled chapter1.cfg through chapter6.cfg. These correspond to the chapters for each course in the July 2009 prototype. The Chapter 1 entry was updated as time went on to load sp_intro_01 instead, before somehow ending up with the nonexistent map name sp_a1_intro by the time of September 2010.

Half-Life 2 Leftovers#

All the text referring to the weapons and "Game Over" screens from Half-Life 2 are leftover in portal2_%language%.txt, however, the Game Over screens are from Episode Two.

"HL2_GameOver_Object"           "IT ENDS HERE\nTHE FREEMAN HAS FAILED TO PRESERVE RESOURCES\nDEEMED CRITICAL TO VICTORY\nINESCAPABLE GLIMPSES OF DOOM CLOUD THE VORTESSENCE"
"HL2_GameOver_Ally"             "SO IT ENDS\nTHE FREEMAN HAS FAILED TO PRESERVE A LIFE REQUIRED FOR VICTORY\nSUCH ARE THE SHAPES WE SEE IN THE VORTESSENCE"
"HL2_GameOver_Timer"            "ALL IS DONE\nTHE FREEMAN'S FAILURE TO SEIZE A SWIFT VICTORY\nLEADS TO OUR TOTAL DEFEAT"
"HL2_GameOver_Stuck"            "ASSIGNMENT: TERMINATED\nSUBJECT: FREEMAN\nREASON: DEMONSTRATION OF EXCEEDINGLY POOR JUDGMENT"

"HL2_357Handgun"    ".357 MAGNUM"
"HL2_Pulse_Rifle"   "OVERWATCH STANDARD ISSUE\n(PULSE-RIFLE)"
"HL2_Bugbait"       "PHEROPOD\n(BUGBAIT)"
"HL2_Crossbow"      "CROSSBOW"
"HL2_Crowbar"       "CROWBAR"
"HL2_Grenade"       "GRENADE"
"HL2_GravityGun"    "ZERO-POINT ENERGY GUN\n(GRAVITY GUN)"
"HL2_Pistol"        "9MM PISTOL"
"HL2_RPG"           "RPG\n(ROCKET PROPELLED GRENADE)"
"HL2_Shotgun"       "SHOTGUN"
"HL2_SMG1"          "SMG\n(SUBMACHINE GUN)"

"hl2_AmmoFull"          "FULL"

Unused Map Elements#

Hidden Monitor#

The area where Wheatley announces his upcoming big surprise includes a monitor. This monitor acts like the other ones and can be broken (complete with Wheatley complaining about it), but it is never triggered to extend and can only be seen by using the developer console. The command ent_fire wheatley_monitor-relay_deploy_15degrees trigger will manually trigger the monitor.

Removed Achievements#

Some maps in the game contain logic_achievement entities set to give achievements that don't exist, and as a result do nothing:

• sp_a3_end attempts to give ACH.ALL_GELS after the three-gel puzzle is completed.
• sp_a4_finale1 attempts to give one of three different achievements if the player manages to grab the frankenturret at the part where Wheatley tries to catch you off guard with a hidden crusher. This is possible in the final game using portals, but requires navigating the frankenturret around various invisible walls and triggers that teleport it to its post-cutscene location.
  • If the frankenturret is dropped into the pit, ACH.MBOX_LIBERATE would be given
  • If it is carried into the nearby fizzler, ACH.MBOX_DESTROY would be given
  • If it is placed on the section of catwalk after the crusher, ACH.MBOX_SAVIOR would be given. The game doesn't check that you actually leave it there though, so it would be possible to kill the frankenturret anyway after getting this achievement.

Co-op Camera Recording Text#

When a player gestures near one of GLaDOS's cameras in co-op mode, their viewpoint will shift into the camera's point of view, with a viewfinder overlay added over the screen to signify this. As part of this effect, flashing red "REC" text is intended to be displayed near the lower right corner, showing how GLaDOS is recording the bots' actions. The game attempts to read the font definition used by this text (InstructorTitle) from clientscheme.res, which is where it's located in other Source games, but in Portal 2 it was moved to basemodui_scheme.res. This results in no text being drawn and the feature left unused. The text can be restored by duplicating the InstructorTitle font definition into clientscheme.res where the game looks for it.

Unused Particle Systems#

broken_tube_suck#

To do: Are these actually unused? They might still appear in existing scenes in the game even though diversity vents as a test element were cut

The particles used for the cut Pneumatic Diversity Vent (see the pre-release page) still exist in the final game under the name broken_tube_suck. As the vents are not used, neither are the particles. While this was to be used for the Diversity Vents, they are actually a leftover from Portal - specifically in the second escape map when the player has to smash a pipe to get access to the cubey goodness within.

chicken.pcf#

Please elaborate. Having more detail is always a good thing.

Contains particles related to the F-Stop chicken

Oddities#

Achievement Icon Inconsistency#

Portal 2's achievement icons have a subtle detail to them where singleplayer achievements have a thicker vignette around the edges and co-op achievements have a thinner one. This pattern holds up for every single achievement in the game, except Party of Three, which has the thicker vignette despite being a co-op achievement. This implies that either this icon may have originally been made for a singleplayer achievement, or that all achievements originally used the thicker vignette; the latter is supported by some of the unused older achievement icons also sharing this inconsistency.

Singleplayer Achievements	Most Co-op Achievements	Party of Three

Internal Achievement Names#

Like many games, Portal 2's achievements have internal names which often differ from the actual names displayed. While most of these are just straight-to-the-point descriptions of how each achievement is obtained, some of them appear more elaborate and imply potential early names for said achievements.

Ode to Lamkin#

game_sounds_music_a2.txt contains a comment that refers to Turret Wife Serenade as "Ode to Lamkin", indicating a possible early name for the song. "Lamkin" is the name of an English ballad about a woman and her son being murdered as well as the surname of a number of different people, but it's not really clear what any of these things have to do with this song, and the specific name Ode to Lamkin doesn't seem to show up anywhere else on the internet.

//
// sp_a2_laser_vs_turret
//
// Ode to Lamkin
"music.sp_a2_laser_vs_turret_r1"

Flip Time#

The models used on the floor of elevator rooms are internally called elevator_roof and default to a ceiling orientation, while the models used on the ceiling default to a floor orientation. Considering that the unused map mp_coop_fling_train contains an early co-op exit room that does have the latter models placed on the floor, it's likely that an earlier version of the singleplayer elevator had these fully reversed from their final configuration.

The image on the right is a mockup of what this may have looked like, made by swapping the floor and ceiling of the final elevator design. An actual version of this during development may have looked slightly different if the models or textures later received further revisions.

Competitive Testing Initiative#

The co-op friend invite screen is internally called pvplobby. This dialog is new to Portal 2 and not carried over from Left 4 Dead's UI, so the name implies it was originally made for the cut versus mode before later being repurposed for co-op.

Aperture's Self-Modifying Robot Assemblers#

The robot assemblers seen during the co-op intro SFM video very obviously change to a different design after the close-up shots of the bots' eyes. The first design features all-white disassemblers spaced closer together, with Portal 1 tubes on the top and bottom, what seems to be glass with a hole in it as the floor, and unused welder arms visible; the second one is much closer to the final design, though notably has the shorter top seen in the Art Therapy map where the disassemblers break down, with cube dropper models placed above and below.

There's also a random Old Aperture fizzler emitter model to the right of P-Body's assembler in the second version, for some reason.

Version Differences#

To do: Way more version differences than this. Also, the only differences in the console intro videos are copyright information which is probably not worth documenting.

The Windows version of Portal 2 has the original version of the 'Open your Mind' intro, found in the Portal 2\portal2\media folder as 'valve.bik'. This is kept over from the original version of the game from 2011. The intro was updated later on, and can be found in the Portal 2\portal2_dlc2\media folder (also as 'valve.bik'). the game was updated to use this location instead which is why we see this updated intro. The game also includes the intros used for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions. They are fundamentally the same, the only difference is the copyright text which references the systems.

PC Version	Xbox Version	PS3 Version

References#