Portal 2 mod overhauls the graphics to Half-Life: Alyx level

A Portal 2 mod “in development for several years” plans to overhaul the adventure game‘s graphics to make Aperture Science look as good as Valve Software’s most recent game Half-Life: Alyx made City 17 look – and Portal 2: Desolation will get a new story, too. So, Portal 3, right?

While we wouldn’t necessarily call it an old game, Portal 2 is both an all-time classic and, well, nearly eleven years old at this point. Not only does Half-Life: Alyx look much better than it, so does a free game set in Aperture Science that Valve released to promote the Steam Deck.

The ambitious Portal 2: Desolation mod aims to change all that, on top of a brand new story. It’s already been in development for a few years – we last heard about it in 2019, where it promised a more “unsettling” story in the Portal universe along with 40-50 test chambers of moderate difficulty and an average playtime of roughly six to eight hours.

The Desolation team’s latest update – the first since 2020 – reveals the “ambitious overhaul” of Portal 2, the mod, and the engine that is taking place. The team says it has “completely replaced the Source Engine’s rendering and lighting pipeline”. This includes better surface rendering, an upgraded lighting system with lights that are no longer static, and “rebuilding some core Portal 2 assets from scratch”. It’s pretty impressive stuff, and you can check it out in the video below.