Portal 2 is celebrating its 15-year anniversary at this time, April 18, 2026. Beneath, we look at the way it approached comedy, and what number of video games nonetheless battle with it.
As we speak, Portal 2 turns 15. Not like most of us at that age, although, Valve’s revered 2011 puzzler is totally assured in its id and humorous as hell. In a sea of video games that try and make us snort, Portal 2 is the uncommon success.
Which is to say, Portal 2 has earned a popularity because the uncommon interactive comedy masterpiece as a lot due to what it would not do improper as what it will get proper. If Portal 2 have been nearly as good as it’s in each different means, however flubbed the jokes, that single failure could be an albatross round its neck. Take into consideration how a lot hate Forspoken received for its quippy dialogue. Consider how Borderlands 3’s mismanagement of the collection’ brash tone turned the sport right into a punching bag for longtime followers. And consider how arduous Portal 2 could be to get pleasure from if GLaDOS have been consistently doling out joke-y hints each time you bought stumped.
Attempting and failing to be humorous is the quickest technique to kill a recreation. So why, a decade and a half on, is Portal 2 nonetheless sparklingly alive?
Portal 2
Brevity Is The Soul Of Wit(*15*)
In 2020, I received again into motion pictures after years obsessively targeted on video video games. Returning to the artform I spent my childhood fixated on, I used to be refreshed to appreciate that, if I wished to, I may work by the complete 31-film oeuvre of the nice Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa (63 hours) in roughly the identical time it could take me to 100% the Kurosawa-inspired open-world recreation Ghost of Tsushima (62.5 hours). In contrast with the period of time required to have interaction with principally some other artwork type, video video games are lengthy.
And, as a sure bard who impressed a couple of Kurosawa movie reminds us, brevity is the soul of wit. Comedy motion pictures not often last more than two hours. Stand-up specials normally max out at one. Sitcoms are usually half so long as dramas. SNL sketches are sometimes about 5 minutes or much less. The shortform video app Vine (R.I.P.) was an awesome platform for jokes as a result of it capped add runtime at six seconds–just lengthy sufficient for a setup and punchline. If you wish to be humorous, it is advisable to be taught to get in, make them snort, and get out.
Comedy advantages from being brief and candy, and most mainstream video games are aiming for the other. Borderlands 3 desires you to play it for a very long time, and even simply finishing the story and a few facet quests will take you 46.5 hours. When a prolonged recreation is continually throwing jokes your means, on common, these jokes are going to overlook at the very least as usually as they hit. And, over the course of dozens of hours, these misses add up and weigh the sport down.
It is to Portal 2’s benefit, then, that you may end it in a couple of sittings. Per (*2*), Portal 2 takes a mean of 10.5 hours to complete. That is fairly brief when in comparison with the common playthrough for different 2011 classics like Darkish Souls (57.5 hours) and Skyrim (115 hours), each of which strike a extra critical tone. Not like these two video games, Portal 2 additionally presents its world, and its comedy, in bite-sized chunks. For a lot of the marketing campaign, it is a silent, solitary recreation. The laughs all have a tendency to return between the puzzles so the gameplay is not regularly interrupted by quips. Although its design is not as regimented as the unique game–which saved to a strict A-B construction till its climax, with A being take a look at chambers and B being transient, comedian interstitials throughout which GLaDOS spoke to you as you moved to the subsequent chamber–Portal 2 nonetheless largely treats discuss as an occasional reward for a puzzle accomplished. Consequently, each time GLaDOS or Wheatley or Cave Johnson begins monologuing, you are able to pay attention and snort.
Portal 2 Offers Characters Causes To Be Humorous(*15*)
Most recreation characters quip for quipping’s sake. Each time Claptrap exhibits up in a Borderlands recreation, he tends to spend a couple of minutes saying vaguely humor-shaped issues as a result of Claptrap is a “humorous character.” Equally, Peter Parker in Insomniac’s Spider-Man refers to a vent as his “personal non-public ventrance,” as a result of Peter Parker canonically quips. It is in these characters’ natures to make jokes. However that narrative compulsion will get outdated quick in a prolonged online game.
Then again, GLaDOS, Wheatley, and Cave Johnson–the important talking elements in Portal 2–follow the cardinal comedy rule of not understanding that they are in a comedy. They take the world round them significantly, and humor arises from their skewed views. GLaDOS hates the player-character Chell for shutting her down on the finish of the primary recreation, so her barbs come from a spot of actual anger. Wheatley is a ball (or, Intelligence Dampening Sphere) of nerves, and Stephen Product owner’s rambling line deliveries do not play as makes an attempt at humor; they really feel just like the pure, stammering overflow of the character’s nervousness. And Cave Johnson, equally, is not attempting to make his listeners snort, however merely giving voice to an era-appropriate taste of “man’s man” bravado. None of those characters conceive of themselves as humorous and … that is what makes them humorous.
Portal 2
However that is the other of how most AAA video games deal with humor. Take into consideration the notorious Forspoken trailer, which had the heroine Frey saying, “So, let me get this straight. I am someplace that is not what I’d name Earth. I am seeing freaking dragons, and, oh yeah, I am speaking to a cuff. Did I simply try this? I simply moved shit with my freaking thoughts! Yeah, okay, that’s one thing I do now. I do magic, kill jacked-up beasts. I will most likely fly subsequent.” This sort of writing will get exhausting shortly as a result of the viewers can really feel that the author’s aim is to be humorous fairly than to jot down the character truthfully.
Valve has at all times been good at this. Half-Life and Half-Life 2 are, equally, enlivened by a vibrant supporting forged, all with their very own eccentricities. However Valve traditionally being good at it doesn’t suggest that it was a foregone conclusion that Portal 2 would knock it out of the park. That is right down to writers Erik Wolpaw, Chet Faliszek, and Jay Pinkerton, actors like Service provider, J.Ok. Simmons, and Ella McLain, and a whole dev group who designed the sport with comedy in thoughts.
Design For Laughing(*15*)
And, in the end, comedy’s success or failure is dependent upon design. Assume, for instance, of the premiere occasion recreation collection of the 2010s and 2020s: The Jackbox Occasion Pack. Throughout 11 mainline entries, The Jackbox Occasion Pack has garnered a devoted following amongst each critical avid gamers and informal gamers. That is not as a result of the writing within the Jackbox video games is hilarious. It is as a result of the video games are structured to encourage their gamers to be humorous.
The identical dynamic applies to video games which are, on the floor, extra critical. Spelunky’s procedurally generated ranges usually conceal surprises that play like jokes when the participant discovers them. FromSoftware’s video games get nice comedic mileage out of setting traps that you simply, the unwary participant, bumble your means into. Hitman: World of Assassination mines comedy from giving the character a tough aim, throwing up obstacles, and giving them foolish instruments (say, a flamingo costume or an exploding golf ball) to attain it.
Whether or not writers or gamers are supplying the laughs, all of those video games are designed with humor in thoughts. Anticipating thewritingin a recreation to be humorous is like anticipating the structure of a comedy membership to get laughs. All you really need is a stage, and Portal 2 places the precise folks on it.
For extra on Portal 2’s anniversary, learn Lengthy Earlier than Friendslop, Portal 2 Made Co-Op Cool.