Portal 2 – The Final Hours
Free Bonus Chapter Added
The Final Hours of Portal 2 has been updated with a chapter on the making of the “Peer Review” DLC and the first details on the future of Portal 2!
About the Digital Book
The Final Hours of Portal 2 takes you deep within the top-secret offices of Valve for an unvarnished look at the creative process behind the new video game Portal 2. Journalist Geoff Keighley was granted unprecedented “fly on the wall” access to Valve to create this staggering 15,000 word multimedia experience. From the hush-hush Portal prequel that was shelved to the last minute scramble to complete the game’s story, The Final Hours of Portal 2 is a gripping and dramatic story brought to life by exclusive photos, videos, interviews, interactive experiences, and other surprises.
Key features:
In The Final Hours of Portal 2 Valve reveals:
- That Portal 2 actually began as a prequel to the first game without portals or GLaDOS.
- The Directed Design Experiments created after Half-Life 2: Episode 2, including video of a never-before-disclosed project, Two Bots, One Wrench.
- How the story of Portal 2 evolved during development. See images and read surprising details.
- How it worked with Jonathan Coulton to create “Want You Gone,” the closing song to the game.
Interactive Highlights Include:
- Play with portals in an interactive diagram where you learn how portals work.
- 360 degree panorama photos of the Valve office and design labs.
- Listen to the songs that inspired the Portal 2 development team.
- Hear Jonathan Coulton’s Portal 2 song in various stages of development.
- Puppet Wheatley in an interactive experience
- Destroy Aperture Science by wiping your fingers over the screen.
- Interact with fans and voice your opinion via polls and a feedback form.
About the Game
Portal 2 draws from the award-winning formula of innovative gameplay, story, and music that earned the original Portal over 70 industry accolades and created a cult following. For more information on Portal 2 click here.
Game Discussion
Steam User 8
I love this fantastic e-book, the graphic design and pictures seem never aged, looks pretty timeless, like the game itself. It's a fantastic digital collection about Portal & Valve, and all the people behind this. This book tells a lots about the Portal 1 and 2 BTS and Valve itself, learned a lot. As a person love the 2 Portal games and love to see the effort behind great jobs, I would like to see this kind of interesting product in every video game.
But there's a small drawback in this piece, the only shame of this amazing piece is that it's kind of broken after 13 years in now days 2024, a big part of important links such as pictures and videos are already dead, and some pictures are too low resolution to be read comfortable now. I know this it might asked too much for this long forgotten little product, but I would like to see how will it look like if it's been fixed with those issues. <3<3<3
Steam User 6
It gives you some really interesting insight. It is a shame that a good amount of content isn't available anymore.
Steam User 10
unfortunately it is very broken. i still recommend it because it's very cheap.
Steam User 4
Portal 2 - The Final Hours is an interactive book filled with details about the development of Portal 2, as well as the experiences and challenges faced by the writers, designers and programmers of the game. It IS a good read in my opinion, and I did enjoy it.
However, it's crucial to note that a lot of the interactive media pieces in the book (specially the small virtual tours) no longer work (although a handful still do), and many links are dead. Additionally, this interactive book uses Adobe Air... so, what will happen to this book once Adobe Air is inevitably discontinued?
That said, despite those issues, I still recommend you check this interactive book out, provided that:
- You played and enjoyed Portal 2, and maybe Portal 1 as well.
- You get this book on sale, preferably with a 60%+ discount. You should NOT pay more than a dollar for this.
As a final note: I had no idea Geoff Keighley, a.k.a The Dorito Pope, is the one who wrote this book... good for him (although I wish he was less of a shill, of course). I hope he makes more content like this... but not with Adobe Air.
Steam User 1
Portal 2 - The Final Hours is a fun, short read if you are interested in the Portal franchise or other Valve games. Many embedded elements are not functional as of now, which is a bit frustrating to see, but I love these behind-the-scenes looks at any game I enjoy. With the Portal games being some of my favorite games of all time, I personally didn’t learn much more than I already knew due to community research osmosis, but if you aren’t as familiar with these development stories, it is much more a fascinating time. If you somehow haven’t played the Portal games before stumbling upon this digital book, please do that first, they are impeccable and perfect in my opinion, and this book functions as a delightful addition to learn how art came to be. I highly recommend it, sans the technical issues a decade later. With its cheap price, it’s hard for me to condemn. It should probably just be free and come with the base game, and it should be fixed though I do not see that happening.
Steam User 0
I would say that half of the documentary works other not so much and its a piece about how portal 1 and 2 were created and peaple ho helped to create it and some art and conceps for the game and some stories from the past.Its cheap and for a true portal fan its three quarters of a hour of good reading with some short videos few polls and sadly many not working ones
7-10
Steam User 0
It is some design and concept works with developer insights. What else were you expecting?