Following a surprise announcement during the Nintendo Direct Mini: Partner Showcase, Portal and Portal 2 are now playable on the Switch. The games come bundled together in the Portal Companion Collection, which is on sale on the Nintendo eShop right now.
For anyone who hasn’t experienced these games, the first Portal is a cult classic — no other game has had quite as big an impact on early 2000s meme culture as the companion cube or “The cake is a lie.” You play as Chell, a woman who wakes in an abandoned testing facility with only a vindictive AI named GLaDOS for company. Your only objective is to escape the facility by completing GLaDOS’ testing chambers using the Portal gun, an experimental device that shoots blue and orange portals that you can teleport between. It’s a simple concept, but the puzzles become increasingly difficult as you learn how to use the portals to fling yourself across the room and reach secret parts of the lab.
Portal 2 expanded on the first game in every way. Not only do you team up with GLaDOS and learn about the founder of the testing facility, played expertly by J. K. Simmons, but you also get new ways to solve puzzles. Portal 2 also features a fantastic co-op mode that lets you solve puzzles with a friend who has their own Portal gun and set of teleporters.
Luckily, Portal Companion Collection includes the co-op game mode with local, split-screen and online multiplayer.
Perhaps the most exciting part about this is the price tag: Portal Companion Collection is just $19.99. That’s a fantastic deal for two of the best games ever made, and early reports are that they work perfectly on Switch in handheld and docked mode. So please, if you haven’t played these wickedly funny and brain busting games before, or even if it’s just been a while since you last played, pick them up on Switch and play them with a friend. There’s nothing quite like it.
