A modder has discovered the 2004 classic FPS Half-Life 2 hidden away in the Portal Companion Collection that just launched on Nintendo Switch, and naturally they've already found a way to run it.
It's still a work-in-progress, but yes, this means Half-Life 2 is running on Switch somewhere, somehow. The somehow is explained by OatmealDome on Twitter, who says "the entirety of Half-Life 2 (minus maps and music)" is included in the Portal Companion Collection's code. As the modder points out, this might not seem like a big surprise at first glance since Portal was developed as a "glorified" Half-Life 2 mod, but curiously the collection also has Half-Life 2 code that has nothing to do with Portal.
Regardless, a modder has already found a way to get it running, despite some hiccups.
"I managed to load Half-Life 2 in the Switch version of Portal 1!" writes OatmealDome. "It kinda works: the game occasionally crashes, some maps are impossible to progress in, NPC animations are bugged, saves don’t work, and world cameras don’t spawn correctly."
The main reason why this works so well is that Portal 1 is basically just a glorified mod for Half-Life 2. (For example, the player code for Portal is based directly on the player code for HL2.)NVIDIA Lightspeed Studios leaving behind a bunch of HL2 assets helps out as well.June 29, 2022
Half-Life 2 on Switch isn't the only cool thing to have leaked from the new Portal collection. Just yesterday, Portal 2 beta content that never made it to the game's full release was datamined from the new collection. The leak is the first time the cut content has been made public in the many years since it was developed and ultimately scrapped, giving fans a fascinating look at what almost was.
In case you needed any convincing, here's why the Portal collection on Switch is an absolute bargain.
