On February 25, 2022, Valve quietly premiered a trailer for a game called Aperture Desk Job. The video intentionally doesn’t explain what the game is, but aside from including the word Aperture in the title, it’s clear that it takes place in the Portal universe. The end of the trailer reveals that it will be released just a few days later and that it will be free.
As promised, the game was released on March 1st and no one seems to be playing it, which is a pity because it’s a great, “Short Playable” game, as Valve refers to it. .
Aperture Desk Job doesn’t have a portal in it, but it is a Portal game. It features an established Portal character, as well as a new character named Grady, voiced by one of my favorite comedians (and possibly yours after you watch the side clip). below), Nate Bargatze.
Perhaps the game’s biggest appeal to Portal fans, though, is that it’s true to its standards. You spend most of your time on Grady, but you also spend time on Cave Johnson. The creators of Portal and Portal 2 not only created extra dialogue for the lemon-hating Aperture founder, but JK Simmons jumped into the recording studio to do new dialogue. Cave Johnson and JK Simmons’ involvement were both undisclosed during the game’s limited marketing. It was a lovely surprise for me when I played, but I decided to tell you because if you haven’t played it will probably push you to the limit to finally join the download.
The whole idea behind Aperture Desk Job is that it’s meant to be an intro to the Steam Deck. It’s best played on the Steam Deck because it takes advantage of the console’s various hardware capabilities, but it doesn’t. request Steam floor. The game was released at a time when the Steam Deck was extremely hard to find, which may have contributed to its underappreciation. Perhaps many people assume that it requires Steam Deck. The comparison isn’t perfect, but it’s a bit like Astro’s Playroom on PlayStation 5 – if it had also been released on PlayStation 4. And was criminally ignored.
If you love Portal like I do, there’s no reason not to play. It’s funny and it pushes the story of the Portal a bit forward. I fear that if more people don’t play it, Valve will see that as a reason not to continue making games in the Portal universe. One completely random person on twitter said of it, “I really underestimated how much fun it would be to spend a little more time in the Portal universe and hear Cave Johnson’s new dialogue in Aperture Desk Job. It was a brief experience, but it made me very happy.” Wow, they sure sound smart.
Here is the direct link to add the game to your Steam library. If you have a Steam Deck, try playing it there. If not, play it wherever you can – great, it’s short, and it’s probably the closest we’ll get to a new Portal game soon.
