Question Is Portal on Switch a sign?

[WoodenSaucer]

It was mentioned in another thread that they announced that they're putting Portal 1 and 2 on the Nintendo Switch. So my question to you guys is can we dare to hope? Is there any possibility this is a sign that they're finally working on Portal 3? Sony put Horizon Zero Dawn on PC to raise awareness right before coming out with its sequel on the PS5. Do you guys think there's a chance that's what Valve is doing here, to raise awareness for Portal 3 at some point?

Honestly, I don't really have my hopes up. But it's fun to think about it. Portal 2 is probably in my top 5 games.

 

[Colif]

The same company who lets people dream about HL3 are sure to not do that again... right??

 

[Frag Maniac]

But it's fun to think about it.

If I were to "think" on that too much, I fear I'd become solid stone with elbow on knee, chin on hand, moss growing on me, and the late Robin Williams offering me some tissue to console me, before it ever actually happened.

A brilliant meme I like to call The Stinker

Seriously though, Valve seem to have their hands full enough with Steam Deck lately, and it remains to be seen if they'll ever get the software to the point where most like it.

 

[WoodenSaucer]

To throw fuel on the fire, though...

Remember last year when Gabe Newel said that Valve has single player games in development? He said HL: Alyx made them want to work on games again, and that they would be announcing stuff in the future.

Valve are working on more games

Valve are always working on games, but a new interview with Gabe Newell suggests they might actually choose to announce and release some of them. Eventually, ma

www.rockpapershotgun.com

.

 

[Frag Maniac]

Remember last year when Gabe Newel said that Valve has single player games in development? He said HL: Alyx made them want to work on games again, and that they would be announcing stuff in the future.

Maybe, but all that tells me is Valve are quickly becoming hipsters that cling to gimmicks like VR for incentive, rather than realize the juggernaut that the original Half Life and Portal franchises are. No devs in their right minds would ever let such franchises sit and go stale for so long, especially with so many fans begging for them to be continued.

 

[WoodenSaucer]

Maybe, but all that tells me is Valve are quickly becoming hipsters that cling to gimmicks like VR for incentive, rather than realize the juggernaut that the original Half Life and Portal franchises are. No devs in their right minds would ever let such franchises sit and got stale for so long, especially with so many fans begging for them to be continued.

Yeah, I agree. From our perspective, it seems really dumb for them to sit on that. But I think what was really going on is that they were sitting back raking in the money from everyone putting their games on Steam, and they didn't have to do any developing of their own to get rich. Then they got the game-making bug again and made HL:Alyx.

 

[Frag Maniac]

Yeah, I agree. From our perspective, it seems really dumb for them to sit on that. But I think what was really going on is that they were sitting back raking in the money from everyone putting their games on Steam, and they didn't have to do any developing of their own to get rich. Then they got the game-making bug again and made HL:Alyx.

Well, the way I consider it, that just makes my point. If becoming rich off pretty much ANY product that's game related doesn't inspire a dev team to take that money and make even better games, they have no right being called game developers. Becoming rich didn't stop Rockstar or Epic from making games. I don't feel it's an excuse, more like laziness.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Valve is like the Daniel Day Lewis of game developers, they only seem to put something out if they really believe in it. They have a pretty good batting average because of it.

Its frustrating from a consumer point of view, and I'd much rather they'd taken a more Rockstar like approach and released a couple more from their major franchises, they wouldnt have to be completely ground breaking to be great games and huge. Steam/DOTA 2 etc does let them rest on those laurels. Still I prefer what's happened to a series of 10 or more increasingly generic games.

No idea if that means Portal 3 is in development, I imagine they always have something in the works so its highly possible. VR Portal would seem like a logical step to me. Haven't even actually tried VR but I guess it would work well there.

 

[WoodenSaucer]

No idea if that means Portal 3 is in development, I imagine they always have something in the works so its highly possible. VR Portal would seem like a logical step to me. Haven't even actually tried VR but I guess it would work well there.

Personally, I think Portal in VR would be the most amazing thing ever. Unfortunately for us, Valve doesn't agree. A couple of years ago, they said they tried it, but quickly realized it wouldn't work. I disagree, but they were the ones messing with it.

Valve considered Portal for VR, but quickly realized it wouldn’t work

Valve's road to Half-Life: Alyx wasn't exactly straight.

www.vg247.com

 

[Brian Boru]

they tried it, but quickly realized it wouldn't work

I wonder was that because of the concept testers digging deep holes in the beach, and then jumping into them from a high cliff?

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Personally, I think Portal in VR would be the most amazing thing ever. Unfortunately for us, Valve doesn't agree. A couple of years ago, they said they tried it, but quickly realized it wouldn't work. I disagree, but they were the ones messing with it.

Valve considered Portal for VR, but quickly realized it wouldn’t work

Valve's road to Half-Life: Alyx wasn't exactly straight.

www.vg247.com

Could see some of the puzzles causing sickness I guess. Maybe theyll try again in a few years if the tech gets better.

 

[WoodenSaucer]

Could see some of the puzzles causing sickness I guess. Maybe theyll try again in a few years if the tech gets better.

Yeah, it probably would. But still, the concept is amazing. In theory, it just seems like Portal would be the perfect VR game.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

It seems like it would be great to me too. I guess Half Life let them create a more realistic sort of interactive world than Portal levels would allow as well.

 

[Frag Maniac]

I've never tried VR, or even been interested in it, but after having played Portal a ton, there's one thing I think VR would really struggle with in it. That would be those challenging chambers where you are popping up through portals and having to spin around and look quickly to locate another surface to shoot a portal at while moving in air. That isn't exactly easy to do even with mouse, I can imagine how difficult, and possibly even disorienting it would be in VR. Major headache time I think.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Thats the parts I was thinking would be making people sick too. I do wonder if having better goggles, refresh rates and so on would help with that in the future. Probably not there yet.

 

[WoodenSaucer]

I've never tried VR, or even been interested in it, but after having played Portal a ton, there's one thing I think VR would really struggle with in it. That would be those challenging chambers where you are popping up through portals and having to spin around and look quickly to locate another surface to shoot a portal at while moving in air. That isn't exactly easy to do even with mouse, I can imagine how difficult, and possibly even disorienting it would be in VR. Major headache time I think.

Yeah, you're probably right about that.

 

[Zloth]

The article doesn't talk about motion sickness, though, it talks about puzzles that require you to maintain momentum toward the end of the game. They say that's harder in VR. I'm not real sure what that means, or why it's harder. Do you have to keep going in exactly the same direction for a while?

 

[WoodenSaucer]

The article doesn't talk about motion sickness, though, it talks about puzzles that require you to maintain momentum toward the end of the game. They say that's harder in VR. I'm not real sure what that means, or why it's harder. Do you have to keep going in exactly the same direction for a while?

I don't really remember the part they're talking about. It doesn't make sense to me, though. Having the two motion controls with analog sticks has all of the same controls that a game controller would have.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

The article doesn't talk about motion sickness, though, it talks about puzzles that require you to maintain momentum toward the end of the game. They say that's harder in VR. I'm not real sure what that means, or why it's harder. Do you have to keep going in exactly the same direction for a while?

Youre right I only scanned it and saw them talk about momentum and assumed that must be it, because I cant see what else it could be.

I don't really remember the part they're talking about. It doesn't make sense to me, though. Having the two motion controls with analog sticks has all of the same controls that a game controller would have.

This is wheres its confusing to me as well.

Only thing I could think of is you cant move your head 360 fast enough with the headset when your flying through the air, but you couldn't move it as fast with a controller either and loads of people have played Portal on consoles or with a controller. Maybe wires are the problem?

 

[WoodenSaucer]

Maybe wires are the problem?

Maybe, but we're starting to see a lot more people play cordlessly. I know with my Quest 2, they have official WiFi PCVR support now.

 

[Frag Maniac]

The article doesn't talk about motion sickness, though, it talks about puzzles that require you to maintain momentum toward the end of the game. They say that's harder in VR. I'm not real sure what that means, or why it's harder. Do you have to keep going in exactly the same direction for a while?

Those chambers I mentioned do in fact require momentum. If you spend too much time trying to locate another portal surface, you loose jump momentum while popping up through the last portal you made, which is often what causes you to fail them.

Maybe motion sickness wasn't mentioned because not all are affected by it.