Valve Cut Portal 2 Competitive Multiplayer

[Hectic Glenn]

It turns out that the Co-op mode wasn't the only multiplayer mode planned for Portal 2. In an interview with 1Up, writer Erik Wolpaw revealed that a competitive multiplayer mode was in development, but was cut because it was a "pure chaos."[br]

The multiplayer was kind of like Speedball with portals and, basically, didn't work.

We went down that path, actually, for a little while and had something up and running -- the best way to describe it is sort of speedball meets Portal," Wolpaw told 1Up. "You know, a sports analog. And it quickly became apparent that while it's fun for about two seconds to drop portals under people and things like that, it quickly just devolves into pure chaos. It lost a lot of the stuff that was really entertaining about Portal, which was puzzle-solving. Cooperative puzzle-solving was just a much more rewarding path.

The actual gameplay of the mode involved moving a ball from one end of a space to the other quickly using portals. The competition would try to stop the player by, for example, trapping them with a portal shot onto the ground.[br]

The multiplayer mode was "a hot mess" Erik Wolpaw said and that is why it was scrapped.

 

[Eejit]

... That sounds hilarious. Do want.

 

[ríomhaire]

Hopefully they'll leave some good foundations for people to mod their own competitive Portal modes.

 

[Blindasabat]

A Portal gun for Ep3 please. I want to do make combine go Zzzzt, weeeeeeeeee-splat!!

 

[ChiliFan]

This sounds like the best thing to dick around with.

 

[Quixoticism]

It would be nice if they at least put in a map or two with something like that so we could play around with it. Pure chaos sounds like my kind of thing.
Or at least have a portal deathmatch mode with stuff like shooting everyone into flaming hot fire pits/acid pools/spike traps.

 

[MJ12]

I would really like to see a video of this.

 

[DEATHMASTER]

This sounds like the best thing to dick around with.

Pretty much.

 

[Tony]

Sounds like it would be the ultimate grief fest. Dropping portals under other players right as they're about to complete an objective.

 

[PvtRyan]

I'd say "competitive" as in competing with another team in time trials could be good, so which team can complete the objective the fastest, without any interaction between the teams.

 

[FoxFire]

Stick the other team in infinite loops. Win.

 

[Lizardizzle]

sounds terrible. I'm glad they realized it wouldn't work

 

[JUL3]

Didn't Kim Swift say they tried that AGES ago? Anyway, yeah I'm glad this isn't in it, it would kinda detract from the Portal feel if it were chaotic.

 

[StarBob]

I think it'd be fun to mess around with... kind of like Smashball. That game moves faster than latency can even keep up with sometimes...

 

[morgs]

It would fail, everyone would forget the ball and just focus on portal dropping you.

 

[Asknoone]

A Portal gun for Ep3 please. I want to do make combine go Zzzzt, weeeeeeeeee-splat!!

Nope.