Home Gaming Killing Cave in Portal 2 just didn’t work out says Valve

Killing Cave in Portal 2 just didn’t work out says Valve

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In the “Plot vs. Play” panel hosted by Double Fine’s Tim Shafer and Valve’s Erik Wolpaw at PAX Prime, Wolpaw revealed that Valve booted the sequence in Portal 2 where players could find and kill Aperture founder cave Johnson.

Johnson’s consciousness would be trapped in a computer, which he would really hate and ask you to unplug him.

“There was something in Portal 2 where originally, for a while, you were going to find Cave Johnson.’ He would be like, ‘Hi, this is Cave Johnson. No really, this is Cave Johnson, look down here.’

And then we’d put him in this crummy box that was plugged into the wall. And the whole thing was that he’d 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 there’s a ledge that you can’t quite jump onto… 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 on—we 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 be—it didn’t work out.” Wolpaw commented.

I’m really, really glad that they didn’t add this to Portal 2. Even though it would have made a good scene to play out in the game it would take away so much. Would killing Cave mean the end of the Portal story and if not how much room would this have left for the story to continue?

Also, who would want to kill Cave? He’s so awesome with his cheap, no conscience; let’s go all the way even if it kills us, FOR SCIENCE attitude.

What do you say, would you have wanted to unplug Cave, even if he asked you really nicely, like this:

“Now, before you say no, I want you to remember that I’ve lived a full life. Also, if this helps seal the deal, livin’ in a computer this long’s made me crazy. That’s right: I am insane.

“Wait. I suppose tellin’ you I’m 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 don’t you get on over here and unplug ol’ Cave.”

The above unused conversation was pulled out of the game by a Steam user a while ago, referencing to this scene Wolpaw was talking about.

Last Updated: September 3, 2012

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