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Portal 2: Desolation is a fanmade project that's almost as good as a brand new game. Almost.
The community-made upgrade is a "tribute to Valve's iconic series," according to developer Emberspark Games, and features a new single-player campaign set in the Portal universe. It will include original characters and environments and take place a few years following the events that transpired in Portal 2.
What's more, it won't just be an hour-long makeover for a game we're already familiar with. It'll include "hours" of puzzling things out complete with an "epic new narrative" according to the creators.
And there's much more to the game than new content. It's got to look its best, of course, which it certainly seems to be doing. Over the past year, the team at Emberspark have been working to make the game look as good as it possibly can, and this new glimpse at the adventure really sells it.
The Desolation team have implemented a new real-time lighting system that you can see in the video clip above, which totally blows away the original Source Engine's rendering and lighting system. Additionally, the developers took the time to improve reflections, surface rendering, and a swath of other content in a bid to bring the original Portal 2's graphics more in line with a world that looks closer to what Valve accomplished with the recent Half-Life: Alyx.
It doesn't seem like we're getting an official Portal sequel any time soon – though we did get a small spinoff Steam Deck game set in the Portal universe – so the Desolation team is doing us a solid and taking things into their own hands. Whether you're interested in blazing through a few more challenging "experiments" or you just want to see what the team at Emberspark Games is capable of, you can check out this project soon enough.
Be sure to check out the best games like Portal and Portal 2 to keep you busy in the meantme.
