Half-Life & Portal - The Complete Story (What You Need to Know!)

With a new Half-Life game just around the corner, wait... *putting down papers* this can't be right... Hmm, I guess it is. With Half-Life: Alyx just around the corner, we here at Suggestive Gaming thought now would be a good time to take a look at the currently

know

n timeline of events in the Half-Life Universe. This includes the Half-Life games, their various expansions and episodes, as well as the Portal games and their various surrounding media. Please note that for the events covered in the original Half-Life game, we will illustrate them using Crowbar Collective's recently

complete

d fan remake: "Black Mesa", simply because, well... selfishly, I just wanted to play that. one.

Now, without further ado, here's

what

you

need

to

know

about Half-Life. Our

story

begins in the 1950s with the establishment of the Black Mesa research corporation, as well as its rivalry with the unorthodox corporation and former shower curtain manufacturer Aperture Science over various government contracts. Decades later, in the 1980s, the companies are still competing side by side, with the two developing similar, but separate, “

portal

” teleportation technologies. Aperture then begins development of its “Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System,” or GLaDOS: an artificial intelligence they hope will help accelerate research into

portal

technology. At some point in the 2000s, GLaDOS powers up, however, instantly becoming self-aware and taking control of the Aperture Scientific Enrichment Center, filling it with deadly neurotoxin to kill its creators.

However, some scientists survive and install a "Morality Core", which prevents him from using the gas again. They then start her on a permanent cycle of "testing" the portal technology on the surviving Aperture Science employees in hopes of perfecting it before Black Mesa can. On the morning of May 16, Black Mesa researchers begin testing their “Anti-Mass Spectrometer,” a machine designed to study crystals recovered from the recently discovered frontier world: Xen, to which Black Mesa scientists were able to travel using their experimental portals. . Due to Dr. Gordon Freeman's tardiness, the team in Sector C of the Black Mesa facility decides to use the extra time for further preparation.

This includes increasing the power of the anti-mass spectrometer beyond its 90% safety buffer. One researcher, Dr. Rosenberg, protests this decision to his colleague, Dr. Richard Keller, but Keller explains that the directive came directly from Black Mesa's administrator, Wallace Breen. Doctors Gina Cross and Colette Green are then tasked with retrieving the Xen crystal sample to bring it to the anti-mass spectrometer chamber just as Gordon Freeman arrives for work. As Gordon travels by tram to Sector C, he is watched by a mysterious man in a blue suit. This man, known to others only as G-Man, continues to monitor Freeman and the other Black Mesa employees.

Also on his way, Freeman meets doctors Isaac Kleiner and Eli Vance. Vance expresses his own concern about the experiment, as the strain of the additional energy is already wreaking havoc and breaking equipment. Gordon puts on a hazardous environment suit, or HEV, and enters the chamber to begin the experiment. Around this time, Gordon's security guard and friend, Barney Calhoun, arrives at the facility to begin his work on the "Blue Shift" in Sector C. Meanwhile, Dr. Cross hands the crystal to the camera and Gordon Start inserting it into the device. At that moment, G-Man contacts Eli Vance and tells him to "prepare for unforeseen consequences." Despite this warning, he allows Gordon to insert the crystal and almost immediately a resonance cascade occurs, causing a rift to open between Xen and Earth, allowing several alien creatures to teleport to installation.

Gordon is then forcibly teleported to various locations around Xen, before returning to the testing chamber and losing consciousness. Elsewhere, Barney Calhoun rides an elevator, which crashes due to a power surge in the facility, causing him to pass out as well. Gordon soon wakes up and leaves the chamber to find Eli Vance, who sends Gordon to the surface to find help. He walks away and finds a lever in the path which he uses to fend off the various invading Xen forces. Meanwhile, Doctors Cross, Green and Rosenberg head to the surface themselves and reach a communications room where Rosenberg sends a distress signal to the military, who send the Hazardous Environment Combat Unit, who not only receive instructions to eliminate any alien threat. , but also to each and every employee of the facility to cover up the incident.

Among these soldiers sent to the facility is Corporal Adrian Shephard and his team, whose heliplane is shot down by a Xen plane and they also lose consciousness. Dr. Rosenberg is quickly captured by arriving HECU forces, but Barney Calhoun awakens and reaches the surface, finding and freeing Rosenberg. He then helps the doctor find the A-17 prototype testing labs and hopefully use a prototype teleportation device to escape the facility. Meanwhile, Gordon discovers the presence of HECU and quickly realizes that they are not there to help him and his fellow scientists. He then fights through his forces and reaches the surface, only to discover that the military has begun airstrikes on Black Mesa, forcing him to immediately retreat to the facility.

Doctors Green and Cross then work again with Dr. Keller, who instructs them to prepare a satellite launch rocket for launch, which along with a prototype displacement beacon, can reduce the effects of the Resonance Cascade and close partially the crack. They can deactivate the rocket lock, allowing it to launch, but they cannot activate it themselves, as the HECU arrives and takes over the control room. Meanwhile, Barney and Rosenberg are able to escape the facility using the teleporter, but not before Barney becomes trapped in a temporal harmonic ebb, causing him to travel between Xen and Black Mesa, like Gordon did before.

However, he luckily ends up outside the facility, finding Rosenberg along with fellow scientists Walter Bennet and Simmons, and they all escape safely in a Black Mesa van. Gordon then spends the rest of the day fighting the various Xen and HECU forces to restore power to the Black Mesa facility and reach the rocket control room prepared by Green and Cross. He eliminates the HECU forces and launches the rocket, allowing Green, Cross and Weller to activate the displacement beacon, successfully reducing the effects of the resonance cascade. Green and Cross get caught in their own harmonic ebb, but end up back on Black Mesa with Weller, where they rest and wait out the consequences.

Elsewhere, the US government realizes that the HECU clearing operation is failing and decides to deploy a Black Ops strike team to detonate a Mark IV thermonuclear device to destroy the entire facility and any evidence. . After the arrival of Black Ops, two Vortigaunts (one of Xen's invasive species) teleport to Black Mesa and fight their way through government forces to recover a collection of Xen crystals. Shortly after, Gordon is ambushed and captured by the HECU, stripped of his weapons and equipment and thrown into a trash compactor to die. However, he escapes this fate and arrives at Black Mesa's secret advanced biological research laboratory, where he finds the various species of Xen contained for study and experiments, revealing that Black Mesa knew about Xen and his creatures long before the resonance cascade.

Meanwhile, Corporal Adrian Shephard wakes up in a Black Mesa medical facility, where he was taken by friendly Black Mesa employees who were unaware of the HECU's actual mission. He heads to the surface, where he learns of HECU's new order to extract themselves from the facility to escape before the nuclear explosion. However, as he heads to an evacuation helicopter, G-Man stops him and closes a door in front of him, causing the nearby soldiers to leave without him. Shepard then returns to the facility to search for another exit and finds his squadmates helping him progress through the facility, where he eventually arrives at the Lambda Complex around the same time as Gordon Freeman does.

Freeman learns that the Lambda Complex was where the Black Mesa staff were initially studying the teleportation technology that first brought them to Xen. Scientists at the complex inform Gordon that the displacement beacon was unable to

complete

ly close the gap between the two worlds due to a powerful being on the other side keeping it open. Shepard then enters the complex just as Gordon jumps into the teleporter to destroy the being controlling the portal. As he does so, alien controllers teleport from Xen, which Shepard is forced to deal with. He then enters a time portal and teleports to Xen itself, where he finds a Displacer Cannon which he uses to teleport around Xen and Black Mesa, fighting a new invasive species called Race powerful creatures there. , encountering the remains of the HEV suit-clad scientists who had teleported there to study the world before him.

He eventually comes across an Alien Grunt cloning facility operated by enslaved and seemingly friendly Vortigaunts. Gordon fights his way through the alien controllers in the facility and finds a giant portal which he enters to find the creature responsible for controlling the rift, as well as the leader of the Xen forces and enslaver of the Vortigaunts: the Nihilanth. Noticing Freeman's arrival, the powerful figure begins to attack and the two engage in battle. Meanwhile, on Black Mesa, Shepard learns of the thermonuclear device and fights her way through Black Ops forces to find and defuse the bomb. However, his efforts are in vain, as he soon sees the G-Man reactivating the bomb as he prepares to leave.

Unable to return to stop it, Shepard is forced to leave and encounters a giant Race X genetic worm attempting to enter a portal to Black Mesa. Shephard is able to destroy the creature to prevent its invasion, causing his portal to explode and knocking him out. When he wakes up, Shephard finds himself on a heliplane, much like the one he used to get to Black Mesa. The G-Man greets him just as the nuclear bomb destroys Black Mesa in the distance. G-Man then teleports them to an unknown location, claiming that he has to keep Shephard imprisoned in an isolated location at the request of his "employer", due to her knowledge of the events that occurred.

G-Man then escapes through a portal and Shephard is left alone in the void. Meanwhile, Gordon fights and kills the Nihilanth. In Death of Him, Gordon is teleported out of his lair and is overwhelmed by an explosion that freezes time. Emerging from the frozen explosion is G-Man once again, who finally speaks with Freeman. He reveals that thanks to Freeman, he and his "employers" now control the frontier world of Xen. He then offers them a job offer from his employers and teleports Gordon to a tram in the void. Gordon then accepts the job and enters a portal, after which G-Man praises his decision and states that he will see him later before putting him into a statistical sleep.

After the events on Black Mesa, Portal Storms begin to hit Earth, causing small interdimensional rifts to open across the planet, giving rise to a large number of Xen

life

forms. While Earth's various governments are distracted fighting these forces, The Combine, an extremely powerful interdimensional empire that had initially pursued Nihilanth and his creatures to Xen, arrive en masse to invade Earth. The United Nations declares war on the Combine, but it only lasts seven hours, as the Combine proves too powerful an enemy. Former administrator of Black Mesa, Wallace Breen, negotiates Earth's surrender with the Combine, allowing humanity's survival at the cost of a

life

of slavery.

Breen is then named puppet ruler of the Combine Advisors and takes on the role of Steward of the Earth. Additionally, the Vortigaunts arrive on Earth, now free from their own slavery. Owing eternal gratitude to Gordon Freeman, Eli Vance convinces the Vortigaunts to join Humanity to create an underground resistance to fight and ultimately overthrow the Combine. Shortly after the Combine invasion, at the Aperture Science Enrichment Center, GLaDOS is now apparently "alone" in the facility. One of the last surviving employees, scientist Doug Rattmann, has a hunch about an initially rejected test subject named Chell. Due to his extreme stubbornness and tenacity, Rattmann places her at the top of the list.potential test subjects, in the hopes that he can take down the increasingly violent and sadistic AI that runs the facility.

He then goes into hiding and finds several "lairs" in the facility where he takes refuge, slowly falling into madness caused by his now untreated schizophrenia. GLaDOS then awakens Chell from stasis sleep and begins performing tests using the portable portal device Aperture Science, promising her the cake upon successful completion of all tests. However, Chell soon discovers some of Rattmann's lairs, finding several messages and warnings about GLaDOS's deceptions and true intentions, particularly that the cake is a lie. GLaDOS also tortures Chell by providing her with a heavy companion cube as her friend, but forcing her to incinerate it after the test is complete.

Chell completes all the tests successfully and is then taken to a fiery pit by GLaDOS. Chell manages to escape, however, and begins to wander through the empty offices and hallways of the abandoned facility. Eventually, she arrives at the Central AI Chamber, where she finds GLaDOS's mechanical chassis hanging from the ceiling. Ella Chell is then able to outsmart the AI, using the portal device to redirect the turret's missiles at GLaDOS, removing and destroying her personality cores. After GLaDOS' hardware is destroyed, a portal opens, transporting Chell and the remains of the chassis to the facility's parking lot. However, shortly after, a "Party Escort Bot" arrives to drag Chell back inside the facility, immediately placing her into a stasis sleep.

Shortly after, Doug Rattmann finally escapes the facility, just in time to see Chell being dragged away by the Party Escort Bot. Feeling responsible for Chell's fate, Rattmann re-enters the facility and finds her long-term relaxation room, where she is in a state of stasis. However, he soon encounters opposition and is hit by a bullet from a turret. Knowing that his only chance to save Chell would be to ensure that her life support remains active, he crawls to a local workstation and redirects the power source from her room to the facility's backup network. This guarantees her survival, but she does not set a deadline for cryosleep for her, meaning she will remain asleep indefinitely.

She then goes into a Relaxation Vault and falls asleep. Years later, about twenty years after the Black Mesa incident, G-Man awakens Gordon Freeman in a train car heading to City 17. At the train station, Gordon is captured by Combine Overwatch forces, but is intercepted by an undercover Barney Calhoun. , which has infiltrated the opposition. Barney takes Gordon to safety and sends him to find Dr. Isaac Kleiner's laboratory. However, when he leaves, he gets caught in the middle of a Combine Overwatch raid. He is almost captured, but is soon saved by a young woman: Alyx Vance, none other than Eli Vance's daughter.

Alyx takes Gordon to Kleiner's laboratory, and there, Kleiner reveals his own teleporter built to quickly transport members of the Underground Resistance. They decide to use it to send Gordon and Alyx to Black Mesa East: a resistance base and research facility where Eli Vance directs the group's scientific research. Kleiner gives Gordon a new and improved version of his HEV suit, and the two set up the teleporter to send Alyx to Black Mesa East. After a successful teleportation, Gordon enters the machine to be sent next. However, Kleiner's fangless pet-headed crab (one of Xen's hostile creatures), named Lamarr, jumps on the machine, causing it to malfunction.

Gordon is then teleported to several locations, including Wallace Breen's office in the monolithic Combine central building called the Citadel. Breen sees Gordon and recognizes him immediately, alerting his Combine superiors, the Advisors, of his return. Gordon is eventually teleported out of Kleiner's lab, and the scientist turns off the teleporter to leave him there. Barney meets with him and gives him the crowbar he used during the Black Mesa incident, and instructs him to use the canal system to reach Black Mesa East and find Eli and Alyx. Gordon then fights his way through the Combine and other alien forces to make his way, witnessing G-Man once again watch his progress.

He soon encounters opposition from a Combine Hunter Chopper. Using an airboat that provided him with stamina, he is able to fight her off and eventually reach Black Mesa East. There, Gordon meets Dr. Judith Mossman, another researcher at the resistance base, before meeting with Eli Vance, who briefs him on the events that have occurred since the Black Mesa incident. Alyx then takes Gordon outside to demonstrate the Zero Point Energy Field Manipulator, or Gravity Gun: a portable device with the ability to manipulate physics. He also introduces his giant mechanical pet: the Hound. Gordon plays with Dog using the Gravity Gun, but his fun is cut short when the Combine arrives and launches a raid on Black Mesa East.

As they re-enter the facility, a ceiling collapses and Alyx and Gordon become separated. Alyx instructs Dog to take Gordon down the road to Ravenholm to escape. Gordon heads to Ravenholm and finds it practically abandoned; However, he soon finds several humans turned by the parasitic Headcrabs into zombie-like creatures. He also discovers that the city is filled with several elaborate and deadly traps meant to kill these zombies. Shortly after, he meets the only inhabitant of the town and the creator of the traps: Father Grigori, who helps Gordon defend himself against the zombies and travel through the town to find a mine that will take him back to City 17.

Refusing to leave In his city, Grigori continues to distract the zombies, entering a burning crypt, leaving his fate unknown as Gordon leaves the city. Gordon then learns that Eli was captured and taken to the Combine-run Nova Prospekt detention center. He then begins traveling down Highway 17 to find it, and along the way meets Colonel Odessa Cubbage, who equips him with an RPG to shoot down an approaching Combine Gunship. Finally, Gordon fights and defeats an alien Antlion guard. A Vortigaunt then extracts a pheropod from the creature, giving it to Gordon and allowing him to control the Antlion forces to aid him in his fight against the Combine opposition.

Gordon arrives at Nova Prospekt and meets Alyx. There, they find a recording of Mossman speaking to Breen, revealing that she had been a spy working with him in some capacity. Alyx and Gordon locate Mossman and confront her, but she insists that she only acted to protect Eli and her job. Alyx refuses to listen, recovers her father from captivity, and forces Mossman to use a teleporter the Combine built based on research provided by Mossman to take them all back to Kleiner's lab. However, Mossman is able to take Eli and teleport them to the Citadel, leaving Alyx and Gordon behind to fight the Combine forces while they prepare the teleporter to take them to Kleiner's laboratory.

However, when they use it, the teleporter explodes as they do so, destroying the facility. Once they arrive at Kleiner's lab, the doctor informs Gordon and Alyx that their teleportation was not instantaneous and that the two had been missing for a week. Kleiner reveals that at that moment, the resistance began their uprising, taking the destruction of Nova Prospekt as their signal to attack. Gordon then takes Dog away and the pair leave Alyx and Kleiner to escape the city while they go out to help in the battle. Dog is separated from Freeman and taken away by a Combine ship, but Gordon is able to encounter Alyx, who is then captured and taken to the Citadel.

Gordon then finds Barney and the two fight towards the Citadel, where they find Dog searching for Alyx. Dog is able to open a passage for Gordon to a Citadel, and he enters to find Alyx and Eli. Inside, Gordon uses a transport pod designed for Combine Stalkers (hardy humans who are transformed into lifeless husks by the Combine) to traverse the facility. Eventually, Gordon encounters a weapons confiscation field, which destroys his weapons, except for the Gravity Gun, causing the field to malfunction and instead charges the Gravity Gun and Gordon's suit with "dark energy." " which the Combine uses as a base for its Arsenal.

However, after making his way through the facility and entering another capsule, he is discovered by Breen, who transports the capsule to his office. There, he is greeted by Mossman, who apologizes and leads Gordon to Breen, who is in the middle of a conversation with Eli. Breen tries to convince Eli to join him, but Eli refuses out of moral principles. Breen then brings Alyx to use as a bargaining chip, threatening to send the three of them through a Combine Portal to his Overworld. However, Mossman intervenes and frees Eli, Alyx, and Gordon from captivity. Breen then takes the Gravity Gun and Flees to head to the Combine Overworld portal to escape.

Alyx and Gordon leave Eli and Mossman (who escape the Citadel using Breen's escape pods) and the pair give chase, seeing Breen speaking to his Combine masters before running off again, leaving the Gravity Gun behind for Gordon. I took it back. He then heads to the Dark Energy reactor as the portal begins to open. Gordon is able to destroy the reactor, causing a giant explosion that apparently kills Breen. The G-Man arrives and freezes time, congratulating Gordon on his continued success and revealing that he has received other "interesting offers" for Gordon's work. Some time after these events, a group of Vortigaunts appear and rescue Alyx, as well as separate Gordon from G-Man.

The Vortigaunts then take the pair out of stasis and teleport them outside the Citadel. They meet with Dog and contact Eli and Kleiner, who reveal that the Citadel Core is about to explode, threatening to destroy all of City 17 and all of its inhabitants. Alyx and Gordon then return to the Citadel to attempt to stabilize the core and stop its explosion. There, they find a recording of Breen's last conversation with his interrupted Combine masters, in which it is revealed that they evidently wanted to transport him using some sort of "host body". They then see an image of a Combine Advisor and find some sort of telepathic effect before an Advisor Pod is sent through a tube beneath them.

They can reach the Citadel Core and stabilize the core and delay the explosion. Alyx then finds information that the Combine intended to allow the explosion to signal Combine forces off-world about the current crisis on Earth. They then find another recent recording, this time from Mossman (intended for Eli, but intercepted by the Combine). She claims to have found the location of a mysterious "Project" before she and her team are attacked by the Combine and a yet-unseen creature called the Hunter. Then the transmission suddenly cuts out. Alyx takes a copy of the transmission and she and Gordon board a train to escape the facility once again.

As the train crashes, the two manage to escape the rubble and make their way through City 17, eventually encountering Barney, who is leading a group of survivors to a train station to escape the city. After fighting off very strong Combine opposition, BGordon and Alyx are able to lead Barney and the Survivors to safety before boarding a train themselves and leaving the city. Just as they escape, the Citadel explodes, decimating City 17 in its wake. The shockwave also causes Alyx and Gordon's train car to overturn, and the pair are knocked unconscious again. Alyx is able to recover and use the gravity gun to free Gordon from the wreckage of the train.

They look at the ruins of City 17 and see a superportal above the remains of the Citadel. Suddenly, a storm of portals occurs and Alyx and Gordon use a path he opened to enter a mine shaft. They arrive at a communications building, where Alyx is able to contact Eli and Kleiner, currently stationed at the White Forest resistance base. When Alyx mentions Mossman's recording, Dr. Magnusson, the base's leader, enters the call and demands that the recording be brought to them as quickly as possible. They are then found by the Combine and Alyx is attacked by a hunter, seriously injuring her.

A Vortigaunt arrives just in time to keep Alyx alive and takes her to a small Resistance outpost nearby. There, Gordon and two other fighters, Griggs and Checkley, protect Vortigaunt and her brothers while they heal Alyx. Unfortunately, they can't fully restore his health without an Antlion larva extract, and Gordon and the Vortigaunt who saved Alyx head out to retrieve it and return it to them. While the Vortigaunts are distracted healing Alyx, G-Man appears to Gordon once again and explains that he had saved Alyx from the Black Mesa incident due to his importance in his plans, despite Breen's objections.

He then instructs Gordon to take her to the White Forest and instructs Alyx to convey a message to Eli: "be prepared for unforeseen consequences." Alyxshe awakens, fully healed, and Vortigaunt takes her and Gordon to the surface, where they witness a militia of Combine forces heading towards the White Forest. Gordon then retrieves a car while Alyx and Vortigaunt cover it, and returns it to them. Alyx and Gordon then drive away, parting ways with Vortigaunt, who returns with his brothers to hunt down the Combine Advisors who escape in his pods. On their way to the White Forest, Alyx and Gordon stop at a radio tower to attempt to contact the base to warn them of the approaching Combine ambush, however, they are attacked by hunters, whom Gordon is able to defeat.

Then, they realize that the Combine Advisors are blocking their broadcast. They continue on, but soon find a crashed Advisor pod on the side of the road. Upon finding him, they begin to once again encounter the telepathic effects they experienced when they witnessed the Counselor within the Citadel. They enter a nearby barn and find a Counselor inside. Gordon and Alyx attempt to destroy its life support system, but it emerges from its cocoon-like structure and telekinetically pins Gordon and Alyx against a wall, attacking and nearly killing Gordon before an explosion causes the creature to flee. Alyx and Gordon then fight their way through more Combine attacks, eventually encountering Dog and reaching the White Forest.

There they meet up with Kleiner and Eli, and they all meet up with Dr. Magnusson. Magnusson reveals that they plan to launch a rocket using the data Alyx recovered at the Citadel, along with the satellites Gordon originally helped launch during the Black Mesa incident, which they hope will shut down the Combine superportal. After fending off another attack, Gordon and Alyx return to Kleiner and Eli to see Mossman's message. In it, he reveals that the mysterious project he found was the "Borealis", an Aperture Science ship carrying powerful unknown technology that had long since mysteriously disappeared from its dry dock.

Kleiner and Eli then disagree over

what

should be done with the Borealis, with Kleiner seeing the value in using the technology for good, while Eli believes that some of his power would only lead to another incident like Black Mesa. Kleiner leaves to help Magnusson with the rocket, and just after doing so, G-Man appears on a screen behind Alyx for a moment. When he disappears, Alyx delivers his message to Eli to "prepare for unforeseen consequences." This catches Eli off guard and he confidently reveals to Gordon that he knows of their "mutual friend" and tells Gordon that he had delivered the same message to Eli on Black Mesa, also revealing that the Xen crystal sample that caused the resonance cascade was provided by G-Man himself.

Magnusson then enters and interrupts the conversation with a warning that the Combine Strider's giant walking forces are advancing towards the base, and instructs Gordon to use the "Magnusson Device", a sticky bomb that can launch and destroy the creatures. He then goes out and successfully uses them to defend himself from Strider's attack. Back at the base, the team regroups and Eli tells Gordon that he believes the G-Man's warning refers to the Borealis, and orders Gordon to destroy the ship, promising to explain more later. He then expresses his pride and gratitude to Freeman, comparing him to a son.

The group is then able to successfully launch the rocket, which works to close the superportal and prevent the Combine from calling for more reinforcements from their homeworld. Alyx then takes Gordon to a helicopter hangar to retrieve a helicopter and fly towards Mossman on the Borealis, while Eli follows. In the hangar, however, they are ambushed by two Councilors, who again pin Gordon and Alyx against the wall. They then capture Eli, who gives them a final warning to destroy the Borealis, whatever the cost. He then tells Alyx that he loves her and to look away before a Councilor impales her brain, probes her mind, and instantly kills the man.

An advisor then moves to grab Alyx, but Dog arrives and fights the advisors, causing them to flee, freeing Alyx and Gordon. Alyx then runs to his lifeless father and caresses his body as he cries. This is the last we see of Gordon and Alyx's

story

, at least for now, but we have something else to tell... More than 50,000 years in the future, Chell is finally awakened from her stasis sleep by Wheatley, a core of a clumsy personality who hopes to receive Chell's help in escaping the Aperture Science facility after her backup power is lost. Wheatley takes Chell to a chamber containing an escape elevator, but soon finds the remains of GLaDOS's lifeless chassis.

Wheatley tries to send power to the elevator, but accidentally wakes up GLaDOS. Upon awakening, he immediately recognizes Chell and resents her for killing the AI. He then crushes Wheatley, knocking him aside before taking Chell to his old discarded Dual-Portal handheld device. GLaDOS then forces Chell through the test chambers once again, while the AI ​​rushes to repair the broken facility. During her tests, Wheatley appears to Chell, hiding from GLaDOS, but revealing that he survived her encounter with her. A few test chambers later, GLaDOS discovers Wheatley and Chell and they are forced to make their way through the back hallways of the facility to escape.

Along the way, Chell discovers a display of a science project left over from "Bring Your Daughter to Work Day" when GLaDOS began killing Aperture employees. Interestingly, one of the “potato power” projects is attributed to a girl named Chell, indicating a potentially deeper link between Chell and Aperture. Chell and Wheatley then decide to sabotage GLaDOS's defenses by causing the turret assembly line to produce defective turrets, as well as cutting off her supply of neurotoxin. Chell and Wheatley return to GLaDOS's chamber, and when she attempts to kill them, she fails due to her meddling. Due to GLaDOS's corruption and Wheatley's presence, a transfer from Wheatley to GLaDOS's body is initiated.

While GLaDOS attempts to stop this, Chell is able to initiate an override and successfully complete the transfer. Wheatley then sends Chell in the elevator to the surface, but she quickly changes her mind, apparently corrupted by his newfound power. He then puts GLaDOS in one of Potato Power's experiments as an act of shame. He then reveals that Wheatley was designed by Aperture Science engineers to be an idiot, installed in her to potentially lower her intelligence so that she could no longer outsmart her and kill her creators. This pushes Wheatley over the edge and destroys the elevator, causing Chell and GLaDOS to begin a deep fall into the depths of the facility.

At the bottom, Chell watches as GLaDOS is carried away by a bird and begins searching the bowels of the facility, discovering that it contains the former Aperture Science facility. Inside, she listens to several recordings of Aperture founder and CEO Cave Johnson explaining the history of the company and its facilities and experiments, including portals and various "gels" with physics-altering effects. One investment was 70 million dollars in lunar rocks, which are crushed. They proved to be excellent conductors for the portal gun to create portal surfaces, but prolonged exposure caused Cave to fall mortally ill. Chell finds GLaDOS and saves her from the birds, and the pair put aside their differences to take on the common goal of stopping Wheatley before she destroys the facility.

However, when GLaDOS starts listening to Cave's records as well, she somehow recognizes his voice, despite never having heard it before. He then begins imitating Cave's assistant, Caroline, during a recorded conversation between the two. When Chell finds a portrait of Cave and Caroline, GLaDOS recognizes them and is overwhelmed. To regroup, he powers down for the moment. Chell also finds another surprising discovery at the Aperture facility: a dry dock for the Borealis, and the ship is nowhere to be found. Chell then listens to another recording of Cave during his last days, where he instructs his engineers to research artificial intelligence so they can transfer his mind into a computer to preserve it.

He then proclaims that if he dies before they can do so, he wants Caroline to take over the facility, even if she doesn't agree, and states that she could also take her place as the AI. GLaDOS then develops a plan to present Wheatley with a paradoxical phrase that should cause his logical processors to fail and disable him. However, when they catch up with him and present the paradox to him, it has no effect, due to his programming to not think deliberately. Wheatley then succumbs to the scientist's AI design to forcefully test the subjects, and sends Chell and GLaDOS to perform tests of their own lazy design.

However, as he discovers a growing tolerance for the "high" that successful testing provides, he reveals that he found a new subject to test (in the form of a robotic test subject) before taking Chell to a trap full of spikes. Chell can easily avoid this trap and reach Wheatley's chamber. There, GLaDOS sends corrupted personality cores, which Chell is able to attach to Wheatley, raising his corruption level and causing another core transfer. When Chell goes to press the button to complete the override, Wheatley reveals that he actually foresaw this outcome and sabotaged the button, which explodes. Chell survives the explosion and sees the moon through a hole in the ruined facility.

She grabs the portal device and fires a portal towards the moon, causing her, Wheatley, and everything else in the room to be sucked into the vacuum of space. Chell latches on to Wheatley, still connected to the facility, but GLaDOS separates Wheatley and pulls Chell through the portal, closing it and leaving Wheatley stranded in space. Chell later wakes up to see the two robots Wheatley planned to test: named Atlas and P-body. GLaDOS, now back in her body and in control of the facility, thanks Chell for helping her rediscover Caroline deep within her programming. She then eliminates Caroline, apparently reverting to her old ways.

However, she decides that despite her best efforts, she has not been able to kill Chell and probably never will be able to. She decides that if she can't kill Chell, the best he can do is get rid of her. She then finally grants Chell her freedom and sends her to the elevator, where she is serenaded with an opera by Turrets. Outside, Chell enters a bright corn field. Behind her, GLaDOS sends the Heavy Companion Cube incinerated from her before slamming the door shut, leaving Chell outside forever. Meanwhile, in space, Wheatley admits his regret as he floats in space, hoping to return one day so he can apologize.

GLaDOS then tests Atlas and P-Body, ultimately using them to discover a vault deep within the facility, which is revealed to contain hundreds of still-alive human test subjects, whom she kills a week into testing... Here is where we leave the Half-Life and Portal universe, until we revisit the events between Half-Life and Half-Life 2 with Half-Life Alyx this month. And while Half-Life writer Marc Laidlaw has revealed his plans for an episode 3 (which I'll link in the description), maybe one day we'll finally get a full conclusion to Gordon Freeman's story. Hello guys, thank you very much for watching this video.

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