To infinity and beyond

Friends will be friends – right till the end

You like revenge, right? Everybody likes revenge. Let’s go get some.” These are the last words uttered by your robot frenemy GLaDOS before you go face off against Wheatley, your former robot friend, who’s now out to kill you. Portal II’s ending is basically Mean Girls in a secret laboratory.

Contrary to the relaxing atmosphere of the puzzler overall, this boss fight pulls no punches. There’s a timer counting down to the destruction of the facility, poisonous gas, and Wheatley throwing bombs at you. The actual task of placing enough personality cores on Wheatley to rein in his madness seems simple enough, but as so often, a formidable foe fights to the last. This eventually leads to the most unlikely, heroic split-second decision – blasting yourself and Wheatley out into space by opening a portal to the moon. Just for a moment you leave what has been both your prison and your home in the most drastic way, holding on for dear life until GLaDOS comes to your rescue. Breathe. But Portal II’s final fight stands out more for the sudden, stalling stalemate it leads to than the action throughout. Thoroughly tired, the remaining parties don’t opt for a fight right to the death, which is still a very rare outcome in videogames. GLaDOS is as threatening as always, but by the end she’s become vulnerable too. This feeling culminates in the brilliant end credits song. It tells of the paradox of having a great nemesis: fighting them wasn’t fun, but it gave you purpose. With this in mind, Portal II ends with a surprisingly sombre question – what now? What do you want to do with the time you have left?