To Do

This is a sub-page of Portal 2.

Stuff to Research#

All the todos here might need to be sorted.
Other unused music?
There's unused UI screens also present in the game's files.
There's more stuff on various Wikis: Valve Developer Community, The Portal Wiki, and maybe the Combine OverWiki and/or Half-Life Wiki.
Revisional differences between ports (Windows, Mac, Linux, Nintendo Switch, Xbox 360 and potentially PS3).
Internal commentary node names.
Unused Puzzlemaker test elements.
Unused black icon for the Bot's Beret.
A weird .bik file in the game's files.
Hidden and development-only console variables, which can be force-enabled using this plugin. A few of these are related to unused or cut content.
Removed entities that still appear in Hammer and implemented entities that don't.
Document the procedural puzzle generator.
There exist textures for an earlier Portal 1-styled cube button (seen in a pre-release screenshot) as box_socket_reference and box_socket_reference_top, there is an "active" texture that matches but no inactive texture (though the exponent still exists)
There are majority of unused models like the early elevator and Wheatley body models
There's an unused angry sphere model reused for the bombs which seems to be custom made, all things considered was likely not an actual core (no anims & simple custom model without handle), possibly as decoration for the core pile
SDK Instances have some stuff in them, including a tiny bit of an early version of the Portal Carousel (Chamber 01) in destructed_departure_soundscape_override_alt in disabled visgroups. catapult_set_1300.vmf is a set of early faith plates when they still looked like panel arms, there are earlier instances for paint droppers being tubes, a "Pendleton" and player dropper (this was likely meant to drop Wheatley (as Pendleton was a separated character before he was merged (also co-existing with Wheatley) after Pendleton was scrapped) and it doesn't have any cube inside of it), some elevator-related instances have an _oldshaft visgroup which is an earlier simpler shaft
A bunch of unused vcd's, including sphere01/sphere02/sphere03 and F-Stop stuff, such as mannequins testing a portal gun.
There's a lower-res cube used for tubes which happens to be a lower res version of the E3 cube
The Portal 1 door and button texture is actually recolored to be yellow as it was used in F-Stop
There's several paint gun spray particles, and the console versions of the game have a weapon_paintgun script which mentions it uses the weaponizer model and sounds from Half-Life 2: Episode Three.
- Magnison animations from F-STOP. (Not Episode Three)
There are also plenty of other particles from F-Stop (can be seen used in the Exposure build)
The tractor beam emitter has a bunch of unused UV's for the inside. Robot Repair uses a version of the model with the UV's used for the controller station.
Paintgun Item Pickups in the FGD (these were reimplemented in P2:CE)
The TVs on some Tubes were used for the Pneumatic Diversity Vent
There's a console command where if you get hit by paint, the effect of the paint will stay on you for a while even after leaving it. The "covered in paint" screen effect was also meant to stay. It's hidden by default but can be re-enabled using csgo-cvar-unhider
Add the rest of the deleted files. They can be recovered via Source 2 Viewer/VRF's "Recover deleted files" tool.
The PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions apparently have a functional Paint Gun since they were built around March 15th 2011 (must be before the paintgun was removed). The earliest build we have of portal 2 for PC is around then but is missing server and client code which would include the paintgun.
Investigate the 2014 partner build (see talk page)
Also investigate the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions
Also investigate version in the Companion Collection on Switch.
A build of LunchHouse's Exposure was leaked. It reportedly contains official Valve code from F-Stop.
There's an edited Portal 1 Portal Gun texture in the files. It is from an early Portal 2 gun.
There are unused test animations on some models such as GLaDOS and Beta Wheatley Boss. The pincher also has an unused animation
There is an unused panel arm animation clearly for the wall with the laser to extend in sp_a2_triple_laser.
There are left over entities for a VS gamemode, which includes a scoreboard (UI scheme missing, but can be recreated) and timer. Requires DLL patching to get it to work (but has been done).
The left over hot_potato entity flashes in color (this is sometimes glitchy and can only be seen when not being held) depending on state.
There are some unused UI sounds.
There is an earlier version of the 1970s floor with different colors seen in an overlay
An unused SFM session named glados_flythru (also exists in leaked licensee build), tries to load a map named sp_glados_01 (early version of sp_a1_wakeup), it is just someone running around the glados map
There is a pressdemo transition list script used for the 2010 press demo shown to GameInformer (the maps have corresponding reslists)
Leftover lines in V-Scripts mention the exact order of an early version of the campaign, including meeting with a core several times and plenty of cut chambers. These can be cross referenced with lines and reslists to fully reconstruct an earlier story line.
The PS3 save screens have some minor differences. For example The Repulsion Polarity chamber seen in them has 3 turrets instead of 5
There are ~60 cut voice lines from the Art Therapy DLC lying in the English subtitles file (Portal 2\portal2_dlc1\resource\subtitles_english.txt)
Document the remains from earlier versions of the maps throughout them:
- sp_a1_intro1 and sp_a1_intro2: Video Kiosk leftovers, and these kiosks were supposed to serve as an emergency explainer and has only appeared in the first maps and would've played a video upon encountering it. The model would be reused for the COOP chapter level select screen.
- sp_a1_wakeup: Other than the possible unused stuff from an earlier version of the final wakeup map, theres also a few leftovers like the hub doors logic which are leftover of the period (that is 2009) where the player was supposed to enter the test track after re-activating GLaDOS.
- sp_a2_laser_over_goo: A surface in the ceiling that uses black metal walls are textured with the portable surface in which the player was supposed to step on the platform and the older layout was seen in the Test Intro in GDC 2012.
- sp_a2_bridge_intro: A brush next reveals additional walls in which it was theorized by some to be the early exit position.
- sp_a2_turret_intro: A few of the turret spots were initially raised judging by the trigger brushes positions on turrets.
- sp_a2_turret_blocker: The entrance was initially different since there are brushes that are scaled from the original size.
- sp_a2_laser_chaining: The chamber used to be about one or two blocks lower than the final version
- sp_a2_triple_laser: Leftover sealing brushes that were supposed for the square light which were replaced with the light strips.
The unused achievements menu in PC versions and compare it to the Nintendo Switch version if it is any different from the original version.