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.

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.

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.