First-Person Puzzle Games As Brain-Bending As Portal

Of all the first-person video games devised by Valve, the Portal franchise is arguably the most unique, blending fascinating, physics-based puzzles with a darkly humorous storyline of neurotic AI and mad science. Unlike most first-person shooters, in which players run around killing things with a gun, Portal and Portal 2 encouraged players to think their way past obstacles and question whether they should obey the mysterious voice directing them through the loudspeakers. Fans of Portal interested in similarly cerebral games should check out the following titles, which challenge players with first-person perspective puzzles, have plots related to mad science, and sometimes feature artificial intelligences running amok.

When Valve first released The Orange Box in 2007, many assumed Team Fortress 2 and Half Life 2: Episodes 1 and 2 would be the most popular titles in this five-game compilation. To the surprise of many, Portal wound up stealing the show, thanks to its clever portal-arranging puzzles, its villainous (and extremely passive-aggressive) antagonist, GLaDOS, and iconic memes such as “The cake is a lie” and the Weighted Companion Cube. The 2011 sequel, Portal 2, expanded on the setting of the Portal universe, introducing supporting characters such as Wheatley and Cave Johnson; adding lasers, gels, and light bridges players could redirect with their portal gun; and giving players sneak peeks at the history of Aperture Science, the deranged research corporation behind the creation of said gun.

Outside of a 2019 virtual reality demo called Aperture Hand Lab, in which players interact with different Aperture Science personality cores and their robot hands, Valve hasn’t expressed any public interest in releasing a Portal 3. Fortunately, quite a few developers have been inspired to make their own first-person puzzle games that, like Portal, are centered around players proceeding through “test chambers” full of physics-based conundrums while a mysterious voice on the loudspeakers comments on their progress in suspicious ways.

First-Person Puzzle Games Like Portal: Superliminal

The puzzle game Superliminal, its demo first revealed during the 2020 Steam Game Festival, can be best described as “Portal meets Inception.” Like Portal, the player character is a mute enigma taking part in a scientific experiment. Unlike the sterile scientific test chambers of Portal, the protagonist of Superliminal is journeying through an artificially induced dream, a psychological experiment supervised by a psychologist named Dr. Pierce and an AI called the Standard Orientation Protocol. To progress through this game’s surreal and warped levels (which resemble hotels, restaurants, and strip malls), players must use forced perspective to alter the size and shape of objects – for instance, backing away from a giant chess piece until it looks small, then reaching out to grasp it.

First-Person Puzzle Games Like Portal: The Talos Principle

The puzzle mechanics of The Talos Principle (made by the creators of the Serious Sam FPS games) frequently involve both sigils and lights, using prism-style beacons to redirect light beams shining through ancient ruins and creating sigils by assembling Tetris-style puzzle pieces into a coherent shape. After examining the game’s veneer of archaeological exploration more closely, players of The Talos Principle will swiftly realize their character is an artificial intelligence in a simulation, a conscious mind being tested to see if they have the intelligence and independence of thought to survive the outside world. Between puzzle-solving, players can find hidden terminals and secret clues, slowly assembling the story of the programmers who created the simulation and the future fate of humanity.

First-Person Puzzle Games Like Portal: Quantum Conundrum

The 2012 first-person puzzle game Quantum Conundrum was actually designed by Kim Swift, a former Valve developer and one of the co-creators of the original Portal. Appropriately enough, its storyline comes across as a more light-hearted, cartoonish version of the usual Portalplot. The player takes on the role of the 12-year old kid nephew to an eccentric genius scientist named Professor Fitz Quadwrangle. After a laboratory accident strands the professor in another dimension, the player must make their way through their uncle’s decidedly non-OSHA-compliant laboratory mansion, navigating past laser grids, bottomless pits, and other obstacles with a gauntlet called the IDS. By switching between different modes of the IDS, players can shift between dimensions where the laws of physics are different: The Fluffy Dimension has lower gravity, for instance, while the Slow Motion Dimension makes things move more slowly.

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