Portal: Alive & Kicking modernises Valve’s original puzzle game

Portal is a small game by Valve standards, yet there’s a lot packed into its short run. Portal: Alive & Kicking takes its chambers, corridors and puzzle structure and rebuilds them using Portal 2 as the technical base. The result is now available on Steam. Developed and published by Rhubarb & Rhubarb, Alive & Kicking launched on 28 August 2026 as a free PC release. Players need Portal 2 installed, with both games sitting in the same Steamapps folder. This isn’t a texture pack. It’s a wider rebuild of the first game, with its spaces reconstructed around the visual systems and presentation introduced in Portal 2.

Aperture gets a Portal 2 refit

The change is clear from the opening sections. Test chambers use more detailed surfaces, revised lighting and the mechanical wall panels associated with Portal 2. Rooms remain readable as puzzle spaces, but they carry more environmental detail than their 2007 versions.

Alive & Kicking keeps the basic shape of Portal intact. Chell still moves through Aperture Science under GLaDOS, solving chambers with the portal gun and gradually moving beyond the controlled test areas. What changes is presentation.

The remake pulls parts of Portal 2’s visual language into the earlier campaign, creating a closer connection between the two games. Aperture’s walls and machinery have more moving parts, and several spaces receive a more elaborate treatment without turning the campaign into a different game. It’s still Portal. It simply uses a later set of tools.

Puzzle information is easier to read

Some of the more useful changes are smaller ones. The developers have revised visual cues around buttons, energy pellet routes and portal-friendly surfaces. Portal’s puzzles were built around a very clean visual system in 2007, but Portal 2 introduced extra ways to direct attention across larger and busier rooms. Alive & Kicking borrows parts of this approach.

The core solutions remain familiar. The remake isn’t trying to redesign Portal around new mechanics or turn each chamber into a fresh puzzle. Instead, it adjusts how information reaches the player, with clearer routes and environmental signals in places where the original could be more understated. The Advanced chambers are included too, so the package covers the main campaign and its tougher variants.

The soundtrack changes with the chambers

Audio gets its own overhaul. Alive & Kicking uses a new dynamic soundtrack, built to react more closely to events during play. Its electronic character fits the sterile test areas and the machinery around them, with the scoring system taking cues from techniques used in Portal 2.

This gives the remake another point of separation from the 2007 release. Visual changes are easy to spot in screenshots, but the audio work becomes more apparent once chambers start moving, devices activate and puzzle sequences develop. The soundtrack can be obtained separately, though the game itself remains free.

Steam features come with the release

Alive & Kicking arrives with nine Steam achievements, captions and full controller support. Source SDK access is included for players interested in the technical side of the project. Hardware demands are modest. The listed minimum requirements call for 2GB of RAM, 4GB of storage and a graphics card supporting Pixel Shader 2.0b. Steam itself now requires Windows 10 or newer, which sets the practical operating-system floor for most installations.

There is one setup detail to keep in mind. Portal 2 needs to be installed, and Alive & Kicking has to share its Steamapps folder. Once those pieces are in place, the remake runs as its own Steam entry.

A remake rather than a replacement

Alive & Kicking occupies a straightforward position. It takes Portal’s campaign and rebuilds its presentation using Portal 2 technology, without pretending to be a new Valve game. The puzzles, characters and progression remain rooted in the first Portal. Most changes sit around those foundations: environments are richer, puzzle cues are clearer, audio is more reactive and the two games now share a more consistent visual approach.

Rhubarb & Rhubarb has left room for extra maps in future releases, with any completed additions planned as free content. For now, Portal: Alive & Kicking offers the original campaign and Advanced chambers in one rebuilt package. If Portal 2 is already sitting in your Steam library, the extra cost is zero.

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