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The universe of Valve’s classic first-person puzzlerPortalreveals itself as you progress through a series of increasingly complex puzzle rooms using the iconic Handheld Portal Device. Both the rooms and the device are creations of an in-universe company known as Aperture Science — an organization that shares a universe with Valve’s other popular first-person shooter series,Half-Life.
In both Portal and its sequel, Portal 2, the backstory ofAperture Scienceis illuminated through dialogue from the primary antagonist GLaDoS, as well as recorded messages left by Cave Johnson, the late founder of the company. Details from these characters place Aperture Science in the periphery of events presented in the Half-Life series, with vague allusions to the competition between Aperture Science and Black Mesa — another scientific research company at the center of the Half-Life universe.
Updated Jul 19, 2025 by William Quick:While many have given up hope for Half-Life: Episode 3, there is still life in the Half-Life and Portal series. It’s been some time since we’ve had a full official release from the original creators, but that’s why the community chose to step in. A group of creators got together to bring us Portal: Revolution, giving us a whole new experience to go through with one of the most popular fictional science tools. It’s much bigger than you might expect and creates more connections (admittedly fan-made) between Half-Life and Portal.
How Is Portal Connected To Half-Life?
The indications that Portal and Half-Life exist within the same universe in the first Portal game are small but significant. You may remembera direct reference to the company Black Mesain the lyrics of Portal’s iconic end credits song, Still Alive:
Maybe you’ll find someone else
To help you
MaybeBlack Mesa?
That was a joke, ha-ha, fat chance.
Although this line could have been a throwaway meta joke for Valve fans, the context of Portal’s setting —a mostly isolated lab for the research of experimental weapons— means it’s entirely possible that these two companies existed alongside each other.
Given that much of Portal’s story takes place in anabandoned Aperture Science facilitythat also happens to be underground, not much of the outside world is seen, meaning it’s also entirely possible for the events in Portal and Half-Life to overlap in many ways. For example,Portal may takeplaceafter the Combine invasionthat occurs in the narrative of the first Half-Life.
Aperture Science and Black Mesa also share a lot of similarities which further support the idea of them as not just co-existing, but rathercompeting entities. Both are companies that deal in experimental scientific research, and both companies have darker intentions that seemingly involveweaponizing their discoveries.
In Portal 2, you’re able to hear a selection of the frequently incoherent rants ofCave Johnson, founder and former CEO of Aperture Science. From Johnson’s recorded messages, we learn that heblames the company Black Mesafor the ultimate failure of Aperture Science.
Specifically,Johnson cites the theft of ideas in the same sentence as Black Mesa, stating:
You’ve most likely used one of the many products we invented but other people have somehow managed to steal from us. Black Mesa can eat my bankrupt…
This not only confirms that Aperture Science and Black Mesa are competitors in the same world, but also thatCave Johnson believes that Black Mesa stole some kind of intellectual property from Aperture Science, to the point of bankrupting Aperture Science.
Given that we see teleportation technology and gravity manipulation in both Portal’s Aperture Science testing facility and Half-Life’s Black Mesa research facility, it’s safe to say thatthe companies shared some concepts, even if isn’t as clear as Cave Johnson would make it seem.
As Portal launched after most of the Half-Life titles,there are no direct references to Aperture Science in any of the Half-Life games. However, the early development of Half-Life 2’s episodic follow-ups included an Aperture Science facility known as the Borealis, which unfortunately never made it into the final version of either of the Half-Life episodes.
Then How Does Portal: Revolution Connect Itself To The Games?
Portal: Revolution isa free-to-download modand you must have Portal 2 in your library to play it.
Created by the small but ambitious, and generous team known as Second Face Software,Portal: Revolution is a mod for Portal 2 created using the game’s engine and assets. Even though the title is a mod, it can be considered a whole new entry in the Portal series as it contains a brand new story with all new puzzles, characters, and over seven hours of gameplay.
Canonically,the events of Portal: Revolution take place before Portal 2. With that in mind, we need to look at the content of this mod and see if it finds new ways to link what happens in Portal to what happens in Half-Life.
SPOILERS AHEAD!
The biggest and most obvious connection is Black Mesa.During your mission, you’ll come across an AI Core with the personality of a woman named Emilia Conlywho used to work as a neuroscientist for Aperture Science.
She is initially unaware of what has occurred at the facility but when she sees its destruction and learns about GLaDos,she wonders bewildered why Black Mesa didn’t intervene, implying that the facility was not a competitor, but a collaborator.
This idea is further strengthened by the introduction of the Teleportation Device.Both Black Mesa and Aperture Science were developing teleportation technologywith the latter making a breakthrough with the Portal Gun. Still, the device was limited by the need to create portals, and research into teleportation between two points anywhere in space began.
Halfway through Portal: Revolution, the unnamed Volunteer and an AI Core named Stirling come acrossa Teleportation Device strikingly similar to the one used by Dr. Kleiner early on in Half-Life 2. Though it malfunctions in Portal: Revolution, it’s been perfected in Half-Life 2, although both games have sequences where you teleport across various settings before ending up elsewhere.
Lastly, there’s the Moon. Half-Life never goes to the Moon, but Portal 2 and Portal: Revolution do. The latter of which ends the game by placing the Volunteer into stasis alongside others in stasis on the moon. Since Half-Life ends canonically with the G-Man placing Freeman into stasis in an unknown location,a link is implied between the G-Man’s candidates and Aperture’s test subjects.
What Is Black Mesa?
Long before the launch of Portal, Valve made waves in the first-person shooter genre with the launch of Half-Life. The first game tells the story of Gordon Freeman, a scientist caught in the middle of an alien invasion at theBlack Mesa Research Facility.
This facility showcases a variety of the tech developed by the company, which isimplied to be funded by the U.S. governmentfor weapons development. As highlighted in all the Half-Life games, Black Mesa is a huge company with widespread reach, including its private military employed to protect the company’s secrets.
Compared to Aperture Science, it could be argued that Black Mesa is much grander in scale as a company, and thereforeentirely capable of the kind of corporate sabotage implied by Cave Johnsonin Portal 2.
If Valve ever returns to the Half-Life and Portal universe, there’s a chance that this matter could be further expanded upon. For now, we only have these small details to understand the connection between these games, and there’s certainly more to the relationship between Black Mesa and Aperture Science that has been left unsaid.
