Portal

Story

The plot of "Portal" is revealed to the player through audio messages or "announcements" from GLaDOS, as well as through visual elements in the rooms of the later levels. According to “The Final Hours of Portal 2,” the game takes place “sometime in 2010”—twelve years after Aperture Science was abandoned. The game begins with Chell waking up from a stasis bed and hearing instructions and warnings from GLaDOS, an artificial intelligence, regarding the upcoming tests. Chell enters various chambers where the game mechanics are introduced to the player one by one. GLaDOS’s announcements serve as instructions for Chell and help the player progress through the game, but they also contribute to the atmosphere and lend the AI a human-like character. Chell is promised cake as a reward if she completes all the test chambers. Chell moves through the empty Enrichment Center, with GLaDOS as her only means of interaction. The closer the player gets to completion, the more sinister GLaDOS’ motives and behavior become; although she is programmed to appear encouraging, GLaDOS’ actions and statements suggest insincerity and a cold-hearted disregard for the safety and well-being of the test subjects. The test chambers become increasingly dangerous as Chell progresses; the tests include a shooting range for military androids as well as several chambers flooded with a hazardous liquid. In another chamber, GLaDOS points out the importance of the “Weighted Companion Cube”—a waist-high cube with a large pink heart on each side—which helps Chell pass the test. However, GLaDOS explains that it must be disposed of in an “emergency intelligence incinerator” before Chell can continue. In some later chambers, there are automated turrets with childlike voices (also voiced by McLain) that fire at Chell but then side with her after being destroyed or disabled. After Chell completes the final test chamber, GLaDOS maneuvers Chell into an incinerator to kill her. Chell escapes using the Portal gun and makes her way through the Enrichment Center’s maintenance areas. GLaDOS panics and insists that she was only pretending to want to kill Chell—as part of the test. GLaDOS then orders Chell to assume the “Party Escort Submission Position”—lying face-down on the floor—so that a “Party Staff Member” can take her to her reward, but Chell continues her escape. In this section, GLaDOS communicates with Chell as it becomes clear that the AI has killed everyone else in the Center. Chell makes her way through the maintenance areas and empty offices behind the test chambers, sometimes following graffiti messages that point her in the right direction. These backstage areas, which are in an extremely dilapidated state, stand in stark contrast to the immaculate test chambers. The graffiti includes statements such as “The cake is a lie” as well as references to Emily Dickinson’s poem “The Chariot,” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “The Reaper and the Flowers,” and Emily Brontë’s “No Coward Soul Is Mine,” which refer to and mourn the death of the Companion Cube. GLaDOS tries to dissuade Chell with threats of physical violence and misleading statements, while Chell ventures deeper and deeper into the maintenance areas. Chell reaches a large chamber where GLaDOS’s hardware hangs above her. GLaDOS continues to threaten Chell, but during their exchange, a sphere falls from GLaDOS, and Chell throws it into an incinerator. GLaDOS reveals that Chell has just destroyed the Morality Core—that is, her conscience—one of the numerous “Personality Cores” that Aperture Science employees had installed after the AI flooded the Enrichment Center with neurotoxin gas. Now that it has been removed, she can once again access its emitter. A six-minute countdown begins as Chell detaches and incinerates more of GLaDOS’s personality cores, while GLaDOS tries to stop her both verbally—with taunts and childish insults—and physically, by firing rockets at her. After Chell destroys the last personality core, a malfunction tears the room apart and propels everything to the surface. Chell is then seen lying outside the facility’s gates amid the remains of GLaDOS. Following the announcement of “Portal 2,” the ending was expanded in a later update. In this retroactive sequel, Chell is pulled away from the scene by an invisible figure speaking in a robotic voice, who thanks her for assuming the “Party Companion Submission Pose.” The final scene, following a long and rapid zoom flight through the depths of the facility, shows a Black Forest cake and the Weighted Companion Cube, surrounded by a cluster of shelves holding dozens of apparently inactive personality cores. The cores begin to glow before a robotic arm descends and extinguishes the candle on the cake, causing the room to darken. As the credits roll, GLaDOS delivers a final report: the song “Still Alive,” which declares the experiment a massive success while simultaneously signaling to the player that GLaDOS is still alive and her “happy” core has not been deactivated.