Portal Companion Collection

Portal Companion Collection

Developer(s)

NVIDIA Lightspeed Studios

Publisher(s)

Valve Corporation

Series

Portal series

Release date(s)

June 28, 2022

Genre(s)

Puzzle-platform

Engine

Source (Source 2013 Singleplayer and Portal 2 engine branch)

Written in

C++

Links

Nintendo eShop page

Portal Companion Collection is a bundle of both main games in the Portal series for Nintendo Switch. It contains the following games:

• Portal (including bonus levels from Portal: Still Alive)
• Portal 2

The port was developed by NVIDIA Lightspeed Studios, a studio which previously ported Half-Life 2 and Portal to NVIDIA Shield (a ARM-based game console which runs on Android). Although they are sold as a bundle, the games are functionally separate, appearing as different applications on the home menu and not sharing any content or binaries. They appear to be based on versions of the respective games circa 2020-2022, lacking changes from updates from beyond that point. As noted above, the port of the first game includes Portal: Still Alive's bonus levels, including the respective time, portal, and step challenges - however, it is otherwise based on the original version of the game, lacking other changes and features from Still Alive.

Internally, the Companion Collection versions of the games are much closer to their PC counterparts than the previous console versions. Notably, the PC file formats are used, likely due to ARM (the CPU architecture used by the Switch and iOS & Android phones) and x86 (common on many PCs) both being little-endian - this makes modding rather trivial on a hacked console.

Bug:Currently, Portal 2 (via backward compatibility) does not work properly and will crash on startup on Nintendo Switch 2. To workaround this, turn on Airplane mode in order to play the game. Portal is not affected.

Differences from other platforms

Both games

• Gyro aiming support has been added. It is disabled by default, but can be enabled and customized in the controller options.
• All fonts (platform-dependent system fonts in Portal and Univers Condensed in Portal 2) have been replaced with Noto Sans, presumably for licensing reasons and/or improved non-English language support.
  • This is not the default font used by the engine, it has been explicitly added in place of the original fonts.
• Both ports run at up to 1080p 60FPS when docked and 720p 60FPS in handheld/tabletop mode, compared to the original console versions' 720p 30FPS at all times.
• Achievement unlocks are indicated with in-game notifications, due to the Switch lacking system-level achievement support.
  • Both games' achievement menus still list Xbox Gamerscore values, despite this being irrelevant on Switch.

Portal

• The menu system is the same one used on Xbox 360 and PS3, aswell as the Nvidia Shield (Android) port, rather than the updated Gamepad UI used on Steam Deck.
• Anti-aliasing - Support up to 4x MSAA (8x will cause black screen), and software AA. Portal on Switch uses 4x strength Software AA and no MSAA by default.
• The Portal: Still Alive bonus levels are included.
  • They are accessed through a unique version of the Bonus Maps menu, which appears to simply be a copy of the New Game menu that loads an alternate set of chapters. This differs from both the PC Bonus Maps menu and the original Still Alive's "challenge maps" menu.
  • The maps appear to have been recompiled with fast lighting, causing large dark shadows to appear around elevators, among other lighting errors.
  • The unique "skull" button skin is not present, although the maps still attempt to call for it in the original locations.
  • Internally, the maps are named stillalive_## (as seen in the Portal map sources leak), as opposed to xbla_## in Still Alive itself.
  • No other features or changes from Still Alive are present.
• The Transmission Recieved achievement and corresponding radios are present; they are not in other console versions. The achievement has a value of 0 Gamerscore.
• This game's achievement notification panel was already present on Xbox 360, where it was used to indicate achievement progress - the Switch version simply changes it to also appear when achievements are unlocked.
• The port completely lacks support for color correction. As a result, the game appears slightly washed out, and the lights don't flicker when GLaDOS' dialogue glitches out.

Portal 2

• The Perpetual Testing Initiative is not present (like in other console versions), although its assets are.
• There is an in-game achievements menu, exclusive to this version of the game. It still lists Xbox Gamerscore values.
  • The Talent Show achievement, which was not originally present on Xbox 360, has a value of 50 Gamerscore.
• Co-op can be played in splitscreen, online, or over local wireless. Online co-op requires a Nintendo Switch Online subscription.
• The co-op menu flow is different, first asking the player if they want to play online, splitscreen, or local wireless, then showing the standard/challenge mode selection if online is chosen.
  • The other console versions have this reversed (allowing challenge mode to be played in splitscreen or over system link, which is not possible on PC/Switch).
  • PC merges the splitscreen option directly into the standard/challenge selection dialog.
• Co-op progress is saved while playing in splitscreen; this also happens on other consoles, but not on PC.
• Portal 2's achievement notification panel appears to be entirely original. It plays the sound ui/startup_02_01.wav when an achievement is unlocked, which goes unused in other versions of the game.
• When the game is being launched, a "LOADING..." box appears in the bottom-right, similar to the one seen in all Source games prior to Alien Swarm. This is completely absent and goes unused in other versions of the game.

Internal

• VPKs are not used; instead, all files for each game are stored in a file called game.zip. This is a standard zip file that can be opened and modified with any common zip software, but due to containing all of the game's content, doing so is often a slow process.
  • If you are modding the game and want to bypass this for faster iteration speed, use PortalNXSideLoader.
• There is a new nxcontent folder containing copies of each search path with Switch-specific assets. These appear to take priority over the assets in the regular folders.
• Localized dialogue is located in nxcontent/i18n/<language>/<gamedir>/, instead of <gamedir>_<language>/ like in all other versions.
• Launch options are specified in the file rom_boot_params.txt, instead of on an actual command line.
• MP3 files have been converted to OGG format, presumably for licensing reasons. This includes Portal 2's voice lines, which in other versions of the game have the extension .wav but are MP3s internally.
• Portal 2 lowers graphics settings in specific levels to ensure consistent performance. The configuration for this can be found in nxcontent/levelconfigs/. These files are not present for the first Portal; it is unknown if they are supported or not.
• In Portal, the game crashes when picking up weapons other than the portal gun. If the game is modified to only mount Half-Life 2's content, then this works fine, but the exact reason why is not currently known.

See also

• Portal
• Portal: Still Alive
• Portal 2 (PC)
  • Console version for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

External links

• Portal Companion Collection on Nintendo eShop