Roll the dice Portal Randomized feels like playing Portal again for the first time Small gameplay tweaks make for a completely fresh take on old challenges. Kyle Orland Feb 27, 2025 12:34 pm | 9 Watch your step. Credit: Valve / gamingdominari Watch your step. Credit: Valve / gamingdominari Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn moreFor most modern players, the worst thing about a video game classic like Portal is that you can never play it again for the first time. No matter how much time has passed since your last playthrough, those same old test chambers will feel a bit too familiar if you revisit them today.Over the years, community mods like Portal Stories: Mel and Portal: Revolution have tried to fix this problem with extensive work on completely new levels and puzzles. Now, though, a much simpler mod is looking to recapture that "first time" feeling simply by adding random gameplay modifiers to Portal's familiar puzzle rooms.The Portal Randomized demo recently posted on ModDB activates one of eight gameplay modifiers when you enter one of the game's first two test chambers. The results, while still a little rough around the edges, show how much extra longevity can be wrung from simple tweaks to existing gameplay. Make special note of that "gravity changed" note in the corner. Credit: Valve / gamingdominari Make special note of that "gravity changed" note in the corner. Credit: Valve / gamingdominari Not all of the Portal Randomized modifiers are instant winners. One that adds intermittent darkness, for instance, practically forces you to stand still for a few seconds until the lights flip back on (too slowly for my comfort). And modifiers like variable gravity or variable movement speed have a pretty trivial effect on how the game plays out, at least in the simplistic early test chambers in the demo.But the best modifiers in this randomizer play out like a completely new game. I'm particularly fond of the "floor is lava" mod that forces you to leap between tiny volcanic islands to survive. Mods that spawn enemies or slowly fill the room with a neurotoxin also add a bit of welcome tension to early Portal challenges that otherwise feel much too simple and safe (or sometimes a lot of tensionI still haven't figured out how to get through the relentless turrets the mod can sometimes place, even after multiple tries).The idea behind Portal Randomized is far from new; we've written in the past about how randomizers add fresh takes into classic console games. And the implementation here could use a bit of polish and rebalancing before it's extended to all of the game's test chambers.Still, we're excited about any attempt to make a beloved classic game feel new again. Here's hoping that projects like this inspire more modders to experiment with how small gameplay tweaks can make old games feel completely different.Kyle OrlandSenior Gaming EditorKyle OrlandSenior Gaming Editor Kyle Orland has been the Senior Gaming Editor at Ars Technica since 2012, writing primarily about the business, tech, and culture behind video games. He has journalism and computer science degrees from University of Maryland. He once wrote a whole book about Minesweeper. 9 Comments