Portal Reloaded is the Third Entry We've All Been Waiting For

Normally I wouldn't discuss a community mod when talking about some of the best games to come out in a given year. While many can be fun, they're usually just neat little twists on a game's formula, but now, 10 years after the original game came out, Portal Reloaded celebrates the anniversary by crafting an all new Portal experience. At first, I saw the premise was about using a third portal and figured I'd check it out, thinking it would just a be cute gimmick through a couple of levels and that the positive Steam reviews were from nostalgic fans excited about having more Portal to play. Instead, this is what I would consider to be the Portal equivalent to Half-Life Alyx and I've never been so happy to be wrong.

Portal Reloaded is a 5 to 6 hour game with its own story, unique assets, and over 20 test chambers to solve. The third portal is used to travel between different times rather than two locations, jumping back and forth 20 years with each pass. As such, items and elements in the past will still exist in the future, but not the other way around. While it may seem like a gimmick, the incredibly clever puzzle designs are an absolute marvel and make this an experience unlike anything else in the series. Every single mechanic from the original two games now has to be reconsidered and relearned in order to effectively use the time travel mechanic and solve each room. And with the points in time being before and after Chell takes out GlaDOS in the first game, the facility's destruction makes for the perfect reason behind the two versions of the test chambers having various differences. Plus the aesthetic difference makes it perfectly clear which timeline you're in at any given time. 

Portal 1 and 2 are two of my favorite games of all time and to have a mod come out 10 years later that feels like a true follow up is incredible. All I can really say is that if Valve doesn't want to get off their asses and make a third game themselves, they should definitely outsource the job to this team right here. If you own a PC copy of the game and would like to give Portal Reloaded a try, click here!