Why?
In January 2008, I was searching for a new project. Portal was out for four months and no one had done anything really serious around it. I was a part of a lot of communities, and following a lot of independent releases, but no mod and no serious story arcs. This I why I decided to launch this project.

How?
Originally, the project was rather insignificant. It was not supposed to be a mod (modification of a game), but just a succession of test chambers, without any real logic between them. I had no goal, I was just making maps as I saw it. And finally, when I reached a dozen test chambers, I realized that it would be a shame to waste all this work by only releasing yet another map pack without any real backstory. This is where I began to write a whole new story and decided to follow the famous belief that prequels are somewhat popular recently.

What?
Portal: Prelude
, as its name implies, is an unofficial prequel to the game Portal. Its story revolves around the pre-GlaDOS epoch way before she was plugged in. Back then, test subjects were still monitored by real Aperture Science employees, a tedious, dull, and repetitive job. One of the reasons why they decided to build a great artificial intelligence that could both replace them for these complex tasks and also take responsibility for many other functions within the complex while competing with Black Mesa's superiority.

All employees of the Aperture Science complex are now eagerly awaiting GlaDOS. A little too eagerly maybe, as the unfolding events will tell...

Who?
My goal was to make it a personal project, without telling anyone about it. I wanted to surprise everyone by releasing a quality, polished, and fully finished game, offering roughly the same amount of playtime as Portal. As months passed, I had more and more difficulty working on it regularly. In real life, I was both a student and an employee, and that didn't leave me a lot of time to work on the game. This is where I decided to ask for some help, mainly from Jérémy "Capitaine Mousse" Barbe, who helped me by making four of the nineteen test chambers while I was working on the final level. Marc "Moroes" Bidoul helped me too, by making a few 3D models and textures.

How long?
Nine months. Not nine months of continuous work of course, but nine months with some days filled with dozens of hours of hard work. I worked on the nineteen test chambers for 3 to 4 months, followed by 2 months on the final level, and 2 months of testing, debugging, and polishing (interfaces, voices, commentaries, etc.). It took me a lot more time than I initially thought, mainly because I also had school exams and my actual job to do on the side.

And after?
In June 2008, I learned like everyone else that Valve was potentially working on an official prequel of Portal. It felt like I was the only person on Earth not entirely happy with this announcement. So, I decided to work twice as hard to release my version way before Valve ever could. I certainly hope that they did not take it too personally, because I was in development 5 months before their announcement.

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September last year, NVIDIA announced a RTX Remix modding tool, which when complete, aimed to provide universal modding capability, to any game running Direct X 8/9. More than that, it also aimed to offer real time raytracing, texture scaling and other shiny bells and whistles for modders to explore.

In December, we got our first glimpse at RTX Remix in action, with the free release of Portal with RTX, the puzzle classic from Valve reimagined in modern splendor. The tools NVIDIA used to make this possible started to be released into creators hands, and work begun on the next project, to invite modders to remix the critically acclaimed Portal: Prelude mod, which among its many accolades is the highest-rated Portal mod on ModDB, and placed 3rd overall Player’s Choice mod of 2008 vs all other mods on the site.


8 months on, and the RTX remaster of this glorious mod is out - trailer above should trigger some nostalia. What's new in this RTX release, is full ray tracing, new, hand-crafted hi-res physically-based textures, and new, enhanced high-poly models evocative of the originals, using all the latest tech from NVIDIA.

As a refresher, Portal Prelude is an unofficial Portal prequel by Nicolas "NykO18" Grevet, and is set before the time of GLaDOS. Featuring an extremely challenging 8-10 hour campaign composed of 19 new test chambers, new advanced gameplay mechanics, a fully voiced story with NPCs, and more, this mod is bound to keep even the most intrepid gamers busy.

It is the first remaster created entirely by modders with the RTX Remix creator toolkit, we can't wait to see more as the tooling matures. You can find this mod available now on Steam.

geforce game ready portal prelud

Portal: Prelude wins third place at MoTY

Portal: Prelude wins third place at MoTY

News 3 comments

Ok, that's right, it's a kind of big surprise. After 114,000 votes, Portal: Prelude didn't win the ModDB's Mod of the Year Awards, but made it to the...

Portal: Prelude 1.1.5 released!

Portal: Prelude 1.1.5 released!

News 14 comments

This new version is shipped with more than 115 bug fixes, improvements and additions (since 1.0.0). We know everything's still not perfect, but we believe...

Portal: Prelude 1.1.0 released!

Portal: Prelude 1.1.0 released!

News 29 comments

Portal: Prelude 1.1.0 released! This new version is shipped with more than 80 bug fixes and additions, along with slightly easier first levels.

Portal: Prelude Released!

Portal: Prelude Released!

News 26 comments

That's it! Portal: Prelude is released! Thanks to FilePlanet and Planet Half-Life, you can now download the game one day before the official release date...

RSS Files
Portal: Prelude 1.2.1

Portal: Prelude 1.2.1

Full Version 18 comments

This mod by the Portal: Prelude Team is the prequel to the Portal game. Features include more gameplay hours than the original game, 8 chapters, 19 test...

Portal: Prelude 1.2.0

Portal: Prelude 1.2.0

Full Version 25 comments

This mod by the Portal: Prelude Team is the prequel to the Portal game. Features include more gameplay hours than the original game, 8 chapters, 19 test...

Portal: Prelude 1.1.5 (archive version)

Portal: Prelude 1.1.5 (archive version)

Full Version 55 comments

All the files needed to make Portal: Prelude run. This version is exactly the same than the "installer" version except that it works better for Mac OS...

Portal: Prelude 1.1.5 (complete installer)

Portal: Prelude 1.1.5 (complete installer)

Full Version 156 comments

This new version is shipped with more than 115 bug fixes, improvements and additions (since 1.0.0). We know everything's still not perfect, but we believe...

Portal: Prelude 1.1.5

Portal: Prelude 1.1.5

Full Version 8 comments

This mod by the Portal: Prelude Team is the prequel to the Portal game. Features include more gameplay hours than the original game, 8 chapters, 48 challenges...

Post comment Comments  (0 - 10 of 408)
wico.
wico. - - 1 comments

What about Portal: Prelude getting a page on steam? So more people could find this great mod

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_TheBug_
_TheBug_ - - 106 comments

I would rather pay to play Hunt Down The Freeman, then be forced to play this again.

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Guest
Guest - - 693,894 comments

Found a Black MEsa fanboy lol

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Guest
Guest - - 693,894 comments

PORTAL PEEEEEEP

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sebastian1090
sebastian1090 - - 7 comments

I downloaded the latest version of the mod, I copied according to the instructions, however, after launching I am greeted with this message "RaiseJException: Method call Failed: Installs.OpenInstalWizard call had invalid argument (arg 0): is_array: true array_values { double_value 1.501500786211467e+19 }"

Anyone know how to fix this?

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sebastian1090
sebastian1090 - - 7 comments

I downloaded the latest version of the mod, I copied according to the instructions, however, after launching I am greeted with this message "RaiseJException: Method call Failed: Installs.OpenInstalWizard call had invalid argument (arg 0): is_array: true array_values { double_value 1.501500786211467e+19 }"

Anyone know how to fix this?

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silverfoxweb
silverfoxweb - - 2 comments

Brazilian translation here: Drive.google.com

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Breadn
Breadn - - 2 comments

I get the following error when trying to launch the mod:

Can't find background image
materials/console/startup_loading.vtf

Any ideas?

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Breadn
Breadn - - 2 comments

I figured it out. Replace the text in your gameinfo.txt with the text from this link.

Pastebin.com

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Guest
Guest - - 693,894 comments

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