April 18, 2026 marks the 15-year anniversary of Portal 2's release. Below, we reminisce about its memorable story, novel cooperative two-player mode, and enduring comedy.

There was a time in the PlayStation 3/Xbox 360 era when Valve was spoiling us with games, packaging some excellent titles in The Orange Box and bringing us back-to-back Left 4 Dead entries. But the company hit a stride with the 2011 release of Portal 2, which might be its finest accomplishment of that generation.

Following up from 2007's Portal, Valve would still have had a hit if it had only made and released the single-player campaign, but the developers went the extra mile with the addition of a full-fledged co-op campaign--which itself would have been an equally worthy sequel to Portal on its own, and in retrospect, was a harbinger for cooperative and social games trending today.

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Portal 2 is celebrating its 15-year anniversary today, April 18, 2026. Below, we examine how it approached comedy, and how many games still struggle with it.

Today, Portal 2 turns 15. Unlike most of us at that age, though, Valve's revered 2011 puzzler is completely confident in its identity and funny as hell. In a sea of games that attempt to make us laugh, Portal 2 is the rare success.

Which is to say, Portal 2 has earned a reputation as the rare interactive comedy masterpiece as much because of what it doesn't do wrong as what it gets right. If Portal 2 were as good as it is in every other way, but flubbed the jokes, that single failure would be an albatross around its neck. Think about how much hate Forspoken got for its quippy dialogue. Think of how Borderlands 3's mismanagement of the series' brash tone turned the game into a punching bag for longtime fans. And think of how hard Portal 2 would be to enjoy if GLaDOS were constantly doling out joke-y hints every time you got stumped.

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Fortnite and Rocket League have kicked off a small new crossover event, called Rivals & Rockets, and it's got unusually good rewards. With a fairly minimal amount of grinding, you can earn a free Fortnite skin and a free car body that works in both games. But you'll have to play Rocket League to get the skin. The Rockets & Rivals event runs until April 30.

To unlock the free skin--Dueling Dragons Jackie, which is a new version, with a much cooler jacket, of the free skin Jackie that was awarded for playing Rocket Racing two years ago--you'll need to complete five quests while playing online matches in Rocket League:

• Hit the ball 50 times
• Get 15 centers or clears
• Get 5 goals
• Play 5 matches
• Win 5 matches

While these quests may seem a little daunting for folks who don't play Rocket League, they're not very time consuming--I got through them in about 45 minutes by playing normally. If you're worried about scoring goals, try the Heatseeker modes in ranked or casual. In Heatseeker, the ball naturally drifts toward the goal at all times, making it much easier to get a shot on target.

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007 First Light DualSense Wireless Controller

$85 | May 27

Preorder at PlayStation Direct

Everyone that's even seen a James Bond film wishes they could have even one iota of the man's coolness, whether it's the classic Sean Connery or the modern Daniel Craig. It's a hard vibe to capture--after all, not everyone can but you might feel a glimmer of it when you hold the new limited edition 007 First Light DualSense Wireless Controller, which opens up for preorder on April 17 at 10 am local time.

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Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 has received two nominations for Gayming Magazine's 2026 Gayming Awards, and the game's director, Daniel Vávra, has responded to this with an X post in which he says he's "really proud" of the game's nominations. Vávra then goes on to imply the way other games depict LGBTQ+ characters is wrong, though he wasn't specific about which games he was referring to.

"TRIGGER WARNING," the post begins. "Among all the various awards and nominations we’ve received, we’ve also just been nominated for the @gaymingmag GAYMING AWARDS! I’m really proud of that, because I absolutely stand by the fact that the way we did it is exactly how something like this should be done. Non-coercively, naturally, and educationally (because we show how things really were in the Middle Ages without idealizing them)--and without shoving it down anyone’s throat or trying to re-educate them like so many titles that are rightfully called 'woke' these days. We made the gay community happy and gave them the CHOICE to be themselves, just like we did for others in other choices and quests, and anyone who isn’t interested probably didn’t even notice. Except, of course, for [a] very small and very loud minority."

He provided no specifics on which games were failing their LGBTQ+ audiences where Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 wasn't.

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One of the best Call of Duty games in recent times, 2019's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare from developer Infinity Ward, is out now on Xbox Game Pass. The game is available for the Premium and Ultimate tiers of Game Pass, as well as PC Game Pass.

Modern Warfare scored generally positive review scores upon release and was a blockbuster success in terms of sales. The campaign was a bright spot for many, telling another globe-trotting story and kicking off a new Modern Warfare series following the popular games earlier in the 2000s.

Modern Warfare's campaign brought back Captain John Price (with a new actor) and introduced Commander Farah Karim. She was played by Claudia Doumit, who starred on Prime Video's The Boys. Her missions were some of the best and most memorable from the campaign.

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