Portal Reloaded is a fan-made Game Mod of Portal 2 by Portanis. The mod includes a new storyline taking place after the events of Portal 2 and a brand new game mechanic: the ability to open portals through time, fired with the mouse wheel button. The player can use these portals to travel to and from 20 years in the future. What's done in the present affects the future, but not the other way around. This rule is exploited and expanded upon in the new 25 puzzle chambers. As always, the player is guided by an A.I. that speaks from above.
The game was released on April 19th, 2021 to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Portal 2.
Portal Reloaded can be installed for free in Steam if you have a copy of Portal 2.
This game includes examples of the following tropes:
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot: The A.I. that speaks to you isn't hostile initially, but if you refuse to complete his mission, he will try to kill you so he can put you back together later on so you'll be able to comply.
- Bad Future: Aperture Science is decayed 20 years in the future, apparently because the entity in charge of the facility has been unresponsive for that period due to the actions of an unnamed rogue test subject.
- Bolivian Army Ending: In the "true" ending, the protagonist escapes before returning to cold storage and manages to exit the facility twenty years in the future. As soon as she steps outside into a wooded area, her portal device deactivates... and three headcrab zombies shamble out of the brush toward her.
- Can't Take Anything with You: You can bring cubes from the future to the present, but you can't bring present cubes to the future. If you try, the cube disintegrates.
- Causality Mechanic: This is the primary new mechanic this Game Mod adds. The player can place a portal allowing them to move between the present version of a test chamber and its counterpart 20 years into the future at will. If you move a box or place a portal in the present, this will be reflected in the future.
- Continue Your Mission, Dammit!: At the beginning, the A.I. urges the player to travel through the time portal if they don't do it immediately. The final urging is noting that it's the only non-lethal option, since the other option is dying of thirst.
- Developer's Foresight: Puzzle chambers are designed for you to exit in only one of the timelines, but clever or skillful players can sometimes manage to exit in the "wrong" timeline. The A.I. acknowledges your creativity and provides a time portal to get you back on rails.
- Dual-World Gameplay: Puzzles revolve around traveling between present and future. Some devices like light bridges and fizzlers will only work in the present, while structures such as stairs, glass panes or portalable walls may be destroyed in the future. In addition, actions in the present affect the future but not the other way around.
- Emergency Temporal Shift: The player character uses the time portal to escape the crushers near the end.
- Excuse Plot: The coop campaign simply tasks the players to go back in time to the Aperture Archives to find a cake recipe lost to time.
- Foreshadowing: At the end of Test 12, the A.I. once mentions that they can't make infinite clones due to the "stupid rules of quantum mechanics", and the only way to create a new you is if you die first. Come the finale, if you disobey him, he wants to kill you to force you into complying with his plan.
- Hologram: Used to show the location of portals and cubes in the future or past, when in the other. Can be toggled on and off with the press of a button.
- Never the Selves Shall Meet: Kind of. Future cubes can touch present cubes, but as soon as the present one moves an inch, the future one will disintegrate.
- No Name Given: We never find out the name of the A.I., just that it's male.
- No Ontological Inertia: If you change the present in any way, even so far as to just tap a storage cube once, everything in the future is instantly corrected to where it should be. This can be a bit annoying, especially if you try to make a tower using a present and future cube.
- Portal to the Past: The central mechanic of this mod, the ability to shoot time portals. There's a difference of 20 years between both sides. The future is dirty and worn out due to decay.
- Resurrective Immortality: The player character can't die because Aperture Science uses their Teleportation technology to respawn them if they do.
- Ret-Gone: Cubes from the future disappear instantly if their present version is moved. Exploited in some of the puzzles to remotely manipulate mechanisms.
- Set Right What Once Went Wrong: According to the A.I., Aperture Science falls in disrepair in the future due to a certain rogue test subject. Your mission is to stop them. Of course, you can refuse the mission and escape the facility.
- The Slow Path: The A.I. notes in the first chamber that you can wait 20 years until the door opens, or you can travel into the future instantly through the green portal. If you don't cross the portal immediately, he insists you do it because otherwise you'll die from thirst before 20 years pass.
- Temporal Paradox: Apparently, bringing a cube from the present to the future violates the law of causality and creates a paradox, so when you try it, the cube simply disintegrates.
- Unknown Character: If the A.I. is to be believed, a rogue test subject is behind the decay of Aperture 20 years from now. We never see them, hear them or even get their name, though it is implied to be Chell, and said destruction being the events of Portal.
- The Voice: The A.I. that talks to you throughout the game is never seen.
- You Are Number 6: You play as Test Subject 4509.
