At PAX Prime in Seattle, Double Fineās Tim Schafer and Valveās Erik Wolpaw gave a panel called āPlot vs. Playā in which they discussed the ongoing debate about gameplay and story. The panel was co-hosted by Kotakuās own Jason Schreier.
The whole thing was as much fun as youād imagine. At one point Wolpaw, who tends to be something of a fount of hilarious unrealized Portal ideas at these sorts of panels, recounted an eventually canned sequence in Portal 2 in which players find (and kill) Aperture founder Cave Johnson. Wellā¦ they kill his brain, anyway. See, his consciousness is trapped inside a computer.
āThere was something in Portal 2 where originally, for a while, you were going to find Cave Johnson.ā He would be like, āHi, this is Cave Johnson. No really, this is Cave Johnson, look down here.ā
And then weād put him in this crummy box that was plugged into the wall. And the whole thing was that heād been put into this computer, and he just hated it, and he just wanted to die. And so he wants you to unplug him, and meanwhile thereās a ledge that you canāt quite jump ontoā¦ and you have to stand on Cave Johnson, you have to unplug him and carry him across the room.
But it was hard to communicate what was going onāwe maybe could have eventually worked it out, but that was something where it seemed like a good fictional idea and we just never quite worked the gameplay out to where it actually got where it needed to beāit didnāt work out.ā
A while back, a Steam forum poster pulled out some unused dialogue from the game and posted it here, where you can find some lines that seem to reference the sequence Wolpaw was talking about.
āNow, before you say no, I want you to remember that Iāve lived a full life. Also, if this helps seal the deal, livinā in a computer this longās made me crazy. Thatās right: I am insane.
āWait. I suppose tellinā you Iām not in my right mind could sway you to not unplugging me. Let me round back on the important parts: in a computer. Ceaseless torture. Monster in the eyes of god. So why donāt you get on over here and unplug olā Cave.ā
Ha. File that all under āThings I really wish had made it into Portal 2.ā
