14 DAY TRIAL // Gamescom 2010 brings good news for Valve fans, as the developer has confirmed that Portal 2 will be released on the 9th of February 2011. Furthermore, Stephen Merchant joins the cast of voice actors as the buddy sphere.
Valve delayed Portal 2 right before the beginning of the Electronic Entertainment Expo that took place this June in Los Angeles, stating that the reason for the postponement was that making games was hard.
E3 2010 was also the scene of an interesting announcement about Portal 2 launching on the PlayStation 3 and of the release of the first gameplay snippets.
One of the video clips has one personality sphere speaking to the player with a British accent, guiding them trough the labyrinth of the destroyed Aperture Science facility. CVG asked Valve then who was the voice actor for the sphere and representatives of the studio simply replied: "Just some guy from our office."
It seems that statement was not entirely true as the Buddy Sphere is voice by some guy from The Office UK. He is Stephen Merchant who was also co-writer for the show and has collaborated with famous British comedian Ricky Gervais on many occasions.
Portal 2 will be arriving on the PlayStation 3 with Steamworks support, including Steam Cloud and Matchmaking, making it the first appearance of a game on a console that uses another online service than the one provided by the platform owner.
This came as a total surprise after Gabe Newell's many attacks against Sony's policies regarding the PlayStation 3. It seems that Sony has become more open than Microsoft in relation with the online content that is to be provided on its home box.
To sum up today's news regarding Portal 2, it will come out on the 9th of February 2011 on the PlayStation 3 and PC with Steamworks support and also on the Xbox 360, but without the advantages provided by Valve's services.