A series of subtle changes discretely introduced to Valve’s acclaimed behavioral enrichment simulator Portal, including a new ending, have ignited a frenzy of speculation about what the changes might mean.
Fans speculate the clues unlocked in the new so-called “transmission received” achievement quests point to information on a possible sequel to their beloved game.
Fans confronted with the cryptic patch note “Changed radio transmission frequency to comply with federal and state spectrum management regulations” soon began to investigate, finding a new achievement had been added along with a series of in-game radio transmissions.
These were subsequently revealed to be encoded images…
Some of the clues, appearing to be nothing more than odd camera images and poor radio transmissions, seemed like red herrings, but eventually a phone number was discovered with an active modem and a mysterious (and passworded) BBS…
Those who frequently play games by Valve may be familiar with the elaborate viral marketing campaigns used in place of traditional product announcements.
Some believe this to be a sure sign something big is coming to the world of Portal.
Additionally a reworked ending sequence has been uncovered (obviously including spoilers):
Update: In an unsurprising revelation, the announcement has been revealed to be none other than Portal 2.
I like how the subtitles continued onto the end.
Haha. 😀
I’ve been reading through the forum thread at http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1168990 nonstop since I read this article.
Parallell detective work was done on:
4chan /v/
http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3273954&userid=0&perpage=40
http://www.facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=902479
Summary from forum thread at steampowered.com:
0h: Forum thread is started. ppl are trying to unlock achievement and decoding the radio transmissions.
2h: The hidden pictures are found in the radio transmissions.
http://img25.imageshack.us/img25/1319/finalnj.png
3h: A telephone number are found hidden in the pictures. It seems to be leading to a BBS.
http://i46.tinypic.com/2uhmfy0.jpg
http://i46.tinypic.com/ru87s2.jpg
http://imgur.com/5wbap
4h: The username and password are (unknowingly at the time) found for the BBS, hidden in morse code in one of the radio transmissions.
http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showpost.php?p=13759533&postcount=1030
http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showpost.php?p=13759710&postcount=1058
4,5h: Everyone is calling the BBS, making the line busy. Very few is able to connect and try to login.
http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showpost.php?p=13759808&postcount=1075
7,5h: Valve decided to help. Added a clue to the login prompt.
http://imgur.com/tsbI2
Aaaand they’re in.
http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showpost.php?p=13764066&postcount=1710
7,5 hours. Nice work 🙂
Check out the full summary and links:
http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1169027
I haven’t played this game in a while, not since the last time I played Half-Life 2 a little over a year ago. So how do you get the new ending? It is included in the digital (Download) version of Portal? Or is it somewhat like an update or patch?
An update; now there’s 24 radios hidden in there and when placed in correct places they start to play morse code. That unlocks the “Transmission Received” achievement and the new ending.
It’s Portal 2.
Also it’s the cover for Game Informer Magazine.
This is triumph, I’m making a note here: Huge Succuess!
Its hard to overstate my satisfaction.