The new Portal Switch version contains a hidden Half-Life 2 game, and someone has already started using it.
Half-Life 2, a timeless first-person shooter from 2004, has been unearthed by a modder and is now playable on Nintendo Switch thanks to the Portal Companion Collection.
Yes, this indicates that Half-Life 2 is currently being developed and is operating on Switch in some capacity. The mysterious inclusion of “the entirety of Half-Life 2 (except maps and music)” in the Portal Companion Collection’s code is explained by OatmealDome on Twitter. Since Portal was created as a “glorified” Half-Life 2 mod, as the modder points out, this might not initially seem like a great surprise, but oddly the collection also contains Half-Life 2 code that has nothing to do with Portal. Despite these issues, a modder has already managed to get it operating.
“I managed to load Half-Life 2 in the Switch version of Portal 1!” writes OatmealDome. “It kinda works: the game occasionally crashes, some maps are impossible to progress in, NPC animations are bugged, saves don’t work, and world cameras don’t spawn correctly.”
Notes:
– Load times have been edited out.
– FPS counter was enabled.
– Large amount of stuttering probably caused by shader compilation and node graph rebuilds.
– Some issues might be caused by a patch I made to bypass a crash.— OatmealDome (@OatmealDome) June 29, 2022
Not everything exciting from the new Portal collection has leaked, including Half-Life 2 for the Switch. Portal 2 beta material that was never included in the game’s full release was just datamined from the new collection yesterday. Fans now have a fascinating peek at what almost was because the leak marks the first time the deleted footage has been made public in the many years since it was created and eventually shelved.
