It’s highly unlikely that we’ll see a new Portal game anytime soon from series creators Valve. But now you can create your own Portal 3 in a place I didn’t expect: Minecraft. Or you can play through 50 pre-made Portal 2 puzzles via a newly released Minecraft mod.
On August 22, a group of 20+ modders and fan devs released Portal: Java Edition, a free remake of Valve’s 2011 first-person puzzler built entirely in vanilla Minecraft using resource and data packs. That technically means the project, which is free to download now on PC, doesn’t use any “mods,” though the creators do include extra third-party mods that help with optimization. And you’ll likely want to install those if you plan to play. This rebuilt version of Portal 2 in Minecraft is pushing the Java version of the popular crafting game hard, and it can chug on even beefy PCs without the extra mods.
According to the team behind it, Portal: Java Edition started development in 2020 and has taken roughly five years to complete. The mod includes all the mechanics and features from Portal 2, including portals (of course), lasers, light bridges, and mobility gels. The project is shipping with 50 levels spread across eight map packs. And if you burn through all of those, well, don’t worry, you can make some more, thanks to the included level editor. The level editor should be pretty easy to use for Minecraft vets, as it seems to function just like building anything else in Mojang’s crafting game, just with more big red buttons and companion cubes.
To play Portal: Java Edition, you’ll need to own Minecraft: Java Edition on PC and then download the project’s files from GitHub. I had to download an older version of Minecraft to get Portal working in the game, but that’s not too hard and is fully supported by the official Minecraft launcher. Once more people are playing this and building levels in it, I expect to replay Doom’s E1M1 and the first level of Super Mario Bros. in the near future.
