An era comes to an end. For about ten years you had been looking at a button in the Portal 2 menu that said “Trading coming soon”. The latest patch removes this message. There is still no trading function for Portal 2 – and there will probably not be in the future either. We summarize for you what the update still has in its luggage.
What’s behind it?
Portal 2 appeared in 2011, four years before Valve developed the Steam inventory. This is used by many games these days, such as Team Fortress 2 and Counter-Strike, to store in-game items. You can also trade these with other users. The function once promised for Portal 2 is now integrated directly into Steam as a feature.
Are there items for Portal 2? While Counter-Strike and Team Fortress 2 received more and more items such as the infamous hats over time, Portal 2 was left out a bit. There are exactly three objects for the puzzle game: the bionic beanie, the WCC flag and a snorkel. However, not a single one of these is tradable.
Portal 2 promised a trading function in the main menu for ten years. But all three items from the game are not exchangeable.
And although hardly anyone expected it, the new update makes it official: You shouldn’t wait for new tradable items for Portal 2 anymore.
What else does the patch for Portal 2 change?
There are no major changes to the gameplay. Above all, the update polishes the game’s technology a bit. The game now supports Vulkan and there are some rendering improvements. In addition, you can now invite other players to co-op with a controller.
There are also various bug fixes, some of which only affect the Linux version. Among other things, the causes of crashes were fixed and bugs that could lead to unsolvable levels were removed. You can find the complete patch notes on the second page of this message.
Support never stopped: The new update for Portal 2 in itself is nothing special. Valve has been updating the game regularly for years, with a total of three patches for the classic puzzle released in 2020. And the years before it looked similar.
Is anyone else playing Portal 2?
Yes, Portal 2 is actually still enjoying some popularity. Although it hardly appears in the 100 most played games on Steam, it still reaches more than 3,000 simultaneously logged in users every day, according to Steam charts.
Mods such as Portal Reloaded should probably take care of that. That delivers a total of 25 new puzzles. And thanks to a third portal and the associated time travel function, this is really complex, so it also offers veterans new challenges.