Portal 1 Cut Content - Xen Ending / Chell in Xen

Here's a video about a very recently discovered element of Portal's cut content.

[OssyFlawol]

A fun fact that wasn't capable of making it into the video due to it being barely relevant - there's a *second* unused skybox in Portal 1 made for the game, known as "bts_custom_cubemap", which is a test skybox the developers made using a cubemap to test how it works, so there definitely might've been some precognition to making the Xen skybox used.

[stellarx]

I wouldn't be surprised if aperture science accidentally put themselves into another dimension, given that they had tons of people constantly using and breaking portal guns. They even could've done it on purpose to have more space for T e s t i n g.

[voidishprattles]

This is actually terrifying. The idea that aperture labs accidently teleported their entire facility into another dimension, where it's trapped and the AI and machines inside just keep finding work to do with no humans around, slowly going mad and becoming hostile and unpredictable as they run out of tests to run... It really cements the whole idea with Glados being a "Victim" in how she was forced to become the AI. All the fear she gave you is then heightened when you realize you're in Xen and even SHE is scared.

[ghostsurfer]

Glados' dialogue in her final fight, specifically "Are you trying to escape? Things have changed since the last time you left the building. What's going on out there will make you wish you were back in here. I have an infinite capacity for knowledge, and even I'm not sure what's going on outside. All I know is I'm the only thing standing between us and them. Well, I was." carries some weird implications. I know most people interpret that as her talking about the Combine/the events of Half Life 2, but if this is a leftover line from early development, she could be talking about Xen and its weird lifeforms.

Also, Xen's surfaces being portal accessible could be a beta version of the "portal surfaces are made from moon rocks" plot point from Portal 2.

[torikenyon]

If you're messing around with teleportation, encountering Xen at some point seems to be inevitable

[AlexVonBronx]

There's also something huge that you've missed! A few months back on twitter, some figure from the half life comunity (I don't quite remember who, but it might have been the author of a place in the west) was talking how much they disliked the fact thathalf life and portal shared the same universe, saying that the tone of the two games dind't fit well togheter. Then, some valve employee (I think either Chet Faliszek or Matt T. Wood) pitched in, saying that originally there was a much bigger reason for them to be linked, which then got scrapped. I didn't think much of it then, but looking at this I can't help but think that this was it!

[BrickiestBrick]

damn if that was the ending, portal 2 would’ve went in a much different direction

[Nothing-pbhu]

I really wish the Portal games were tied more into Half Life than the few hints they left in

[VENM]

I remember I was amazed when glados said "even I dont know whats going on out there" in the final boss battle, at the time I thought the combine war already began or had already ended; but it could have also been made for that xen ending too leading to the idea they set up their facility in xen or were teleported there. Also after finishing the hl games before the release of alyx I felt gordon in half life 3 would have gone to aperture science and meet glados to find a way to fight the combine and those other Aliens leading them, and then heading back to black mesa to prevent the combine from getting its teleportation technology from long ago.

[medicindisquise]

The surprise teleport to Xen woud've fit well with the whole "liquid portal" concept in early protal

[camithebrick]

A lot of things that were scrapped in Portal 1 were reused in Portal 2, and I think this is one of them.

In portal 2, after you beat the final boss, you are sent to the moon.
In portal 1 beta, after you beat the final boss, you are sent to xen.

In portal 2, moon rocks are great portal conductors.
In portal 1 beta, xen rocks are portalable.

Maybe the original story was that Aperture discovered Xen while researching portal tech, and found that Xen rock is great for creating portals. Cave used the last of Aperture's money to bring Xen rocks back to Earth, and bankrupted Aperture, and also got some Xenian disease in the process, which lead to his death. On the old aperture website, it says that Cave got mercury/lead (can't remember which) poisoning, so maybe valve quickly changed it into something that exists in real life when they scrapped the Xen ending.

[EyeHAI]

he didn’t say good evening, i can’t believe Richter Overtime betrayed us, i’m literally crying. >:(

[cocoelacanth]

This is actually pretty interesting. The 2006 GLaDOS fight ends with the room being flooded with a strange liquid substance, before teleporting the player to a room _very similar_ in appearance to the Xen room. Could this be what that was for?

[MillywiggZ]

Not sure if the Borealis disappearing was an idea after HL2: EP1 but it might have been where ‘Portal 1’ took place.

Say ‘Aperture Labs’ was a large facility with the dry dock attached as if it was built somewhere on a coastline. When the experiments on the ship started not only was the dry dock taken to Xen but most of ‘Aperture Labs’. Maybe the ship returned but nothing else did.

[Pokemanic]

So were the "moon rocks" used to make the portal walls actually "interdimensional alien rocks" at this stage in development?

[joshuareesor]

It seems like the ending would have Chell getting teleported herself. Another iteration of the ending has Chell get caught in something called a "liquid portal" after defeating GLaDOS, where she ends up in a similarly rock-textured room with a platform leading to an open skybox.
Even the final ending would still fit with this idea; with GLaDOS and Chell getting sucked up into the sky could have been done by a portal and left both of them stranded in Xen; all that changes is the ending cutscene. So it's possible Xen's inclusion was cut late into development, as Chell getting teleported somewhere seems to be in most versions of the ending (besides the very earliest, where there is no GLaDOS and Chell just leaves the building through the entrance).

[LetsGoGetThem]

Maybe the facility was teleported into Xen deliberately or not, that seems to line up with the ARG "Going home isn't part of my description _anymore"_ Also this kind of explains the existence of the turrets too, for the alien lifeforms.

[NayokeHenji]

It's clear to me that GLaDOS was the only thing protecting Aperture from the Combine in Portal 1 but when she was deactivated at the end of P1 the portal storm/resonance cascade was able to wreck havoc on the facility. That was likely the original narrative.

[youbaouahdi]

I fucking hate how I knew about it but never made the connection, I saw the skybox textures in the Hammer Editor for Portal 1 and just shrugged it off as it just being leftovers from Half Life Source probably, its been sitting in front of us for so long now haha

[fluffywhompus]

0:16
“Portal is seen as the child friendly ip”
Wheatley actively telling you to kill yourself: allow me to introduce myself