Celebrate ten years of Portal 2 with these behind the scenes photos

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Portal 2 developers have been sharing behind-the-scenes photos from the game’s development of Portal 2 to mark its tenth anniversary.

April 19 marks the tenth anniversary of the launch of Portal 2. One of the best puzzle platformers of all time has really hit a decade old and we’re slowly aging into dust. But to help lift our spirits, project lead Josh Weier (opens in new tab) has shared some photos which showcase the development process behind Valve’s 2011 classic.

These are how 99% of all puzzles started out.#Portal2TenYears #Portal2 pic.twitter.com/l5BZ18fMGzApril 19, 2021

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Several of the screenshots showcase the storyboarding process that the developers went through when planning out puzzles in the game, and it’s not quite as high tech as you might imagine. According to Weier, 99% of all puzzles started out as scribblings on a whiteboard which showed off the basic premise of the puzzle. Other pictures showed off some of the first concepts for multiplayer puzzles (opens in new tab) for Portal 2’s co-op mode, which saw players take control of Atlas and P-body, two testing robots in the unfortunate employ of GLADOS. Elsewhere, lead writer Erik Wolpaw shared a picture of the framed whiteboard that he and co-writer Jay Pinkerton used to map out the chaotic few weeks ahead of the game’s content lock.

We shipped Portal 2 10 years ago. The Christmas after, Pinkerton gave me a framed photo of the whiteboard we lived by during the manic couple of months before content lock. pic.twitter.com/mSdI39B5tlApril 18, 2021

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It’s a fascinating look inside the development process of what is widely considered to be one of the best games of all time. It’s not exactly what you think of when you try to picture AAA games development, but for many developers whiteboards and sketches are a valuable first step in planning out the main beats of a puzzle or gameplay section. 

If you want more puzzle platformer action in the meantime, check out the best games like Portal and Portal 2.