Portal 2 Tips and Tricks
Each entry below is one mechanic, what it costs you, and the update it was last checked against. Filter by category or difficulty to narrow the list, and use the anchor beside any heading to link straight to a single tip.
Turrets
#The turret-shaped things in Chapter 8 are Frankenturrets
Sentry turrets debut in Chapter 3 and come back in Chapter 5's factory, and that is all of them. Wheatley's track uses Frankenturrets instead. Wherever real turrets do appear, the room always contains the tool for dealing with them.
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Excursion Funnels
#A funnel ride that feels too long is the wrong solution
Excursion Funnels move you slowly on purpose. When a puzzle starts to drag, you are usually not meant to ride the whole distance, and there is a portal shortcut that drops you into the funnel much nearer to where you are going.
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Momentum
#Crouching mid-jump adds clearance, not horizontal distance
Jump, then press crouch to pull your feet up, and you clear a ledge you would otherwise clip. It does not carry you any further across a gap, because ducking changes your collision hull rather than your velocity.
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Gels
#Every gel dispenser pours from above, so look up first
When you cannot see one, it is behind a wall or above a ceiling you have to portal through to reach. Put a portal under the dispenser's output and the other on the surface you want coated, and the gel travels the pair for you.
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Achievements
#The Overclocker clock starts on entry, not when the map loads
Test Chamber 10 has to fall in 70 seconds, and the two things you lower there are laser-controlled barriers rather than buttons. Retry through Challenge Mode rather than quick-saving your way through it.
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#Smash TV tracks your broken monitors across separate sessions
It is the rarest single-player achievement at 3.7 percent, and the eleven monitors span ten chambers in Chapter 8. The game remembers which ones you have already destroyed, so you can pick up stragglers over several sittings rather than needing one clean sweep.
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#No breakable wall panel hides the portrait, because none exist
Enrichment Sphere 04, built in 1972, puts it in Test Chamber 01's observation room behind a locked gate, and you get past that gate with portals. Nothing in this game opens by smashing a wall panel, whatever older guides tell you to look for.
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Collectibles
#Portal 2 has two radios and only one of them matters
Both sit in Chapter 2. The one that counts ejects from the Vital Apparatus Vent in Test Chamber 06, and carrying it into that chamber's den is what triggers the audio behind the Final Transmission achievement.
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Test Elements
#Excursion Funnels never appear before Chapter 8
Guides that introduce them in Chapter 4 are running four chapters early. Aerial Faith Plates are not a Chapter 4 element either, having arrived back in Chapter 2. If you are hunting for a funnel that should be here, it genuinely is not.
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Achievements
#Professor Portal needs a friend who has never touched co-op
Single-player progress on their account is fine, but any co-op progress at all disqualifies them. You have to finish all five courses yourself first, and they must already be on your friends list and be invited by you. If the opening film plays for them, they are eligible.
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Co-op Hazards
#An Emancipation Grill deletes the portals a funnel runs through
That is what drops a partner out of a funnel halfway across a room. Course 4's Chamber 6, Funnel Hop, is built around it, and because it sits between the two polarity chambers most pairs attack it as a polarity puzzle and get nowhere.
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Co-op Setup
#Steam Family Sharing cannot cover your co-op partner
Co-op needs two simultaneous sessions, and a family cannot run the same game twice at once. Valve's own Steam Families documentation uses Portal 2 as the example. Local split-screen is no substitute either, since Professor Portal has to be earned online.
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Communication
#The ping tool is precise enough to solve a chamber in silence
When your partner has no microphone, ping every surface before anyone places a portal. Point at where you want their portals first, then at where yours will go. Complex four-portal setups get communicated this way without a single word.
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Gestures
#You start the co-op campaign with one gesture, not eight
Only Small Wave is available at the beginning. The other seven unlock as you work through the courses, and Trick Fire does not arrive until Course 4 Chamber 4, so Gesticul-8 cannot be finished early however hard you hunt for the full wheel.
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Co-op Navigation
#You cannot reach the Calibration Course from the Hub
It sits outside the numbering as Course 0, so no Hub door leads back to it. Replaying it means going through the pause menu instead, which catches out plenty of pairs who expected it to sit alongside the other five.
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Console
#sv_cheats blocks achievements per level, not for the whole session
The console message says this app session, but the engine tracks it per level. Loading or reloading a map with sv_cheats 0 restores achievements and Challenge Mode submissions without restarting the game. In multiplayer the host owns the setting.
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Portals
#Your crosshair already tells you whether a surface takes a portal
Portal 2 uses a slightly different set of panel textures from the first game, so judging white against grey by eye misleads you. If the crosshair shows the portal outline the surface works, and if it does not, no angle will change that.
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Gels
#The gel that stops objects sliding is Adhesion, not Reflection
Reflection Gel bounces a Thermal Discouragement Beam and does nothing else. The anti-Propulsion behavior people attribute to it is Adhesion Gel's leftover property, and the two get confused because they share an internal slot in the game files.
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Portals
#Portal bumping is the engine placing your portal, not an exploit
Bumping is the placement step where the game nudges a portal to fit around edges and other portals. It has no technique name because it is not a technique. The func_portal_bumper entity mappers place is a usability aid, not an anti-cheat barrier.
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Speedrunning
#Out of Bounds is a leaderboard category, not skipping cutscenes
It is the community name for save-glitching, and it covers any unnatural load or level transition that makes something possible which otherwise is not, such as save-load clipping. The point is passing through geometry rather than fast-forwarding story.
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What to Read Next
- Puzzle Mechanics. Every test element, the gels in detail, and the movement tech behind these tips.
- Co-Op Guide. All six courses, four-portal thinking, gestures, and the Art Therapy chambers.
- 100% Achievement Guide. All 51 achievements, including the three that need another person.
- Campaign Walkthrough. Chapter by chapter, and which test element arrives when.
- Lore and Story. Aperture's timeline, the radios, and what the first game actually said.
- Getting Started. Platform differences and setup, if you are starting today.