Valve's superfans are back to break the player concurrent record for Portal, but the challenge may be steeper than anyone has realised
I assumed that everyone with access to a PC would have played Portal at this point, but it seems this is far from the case, at least if Portal's all-time concurrent players are anything to go by. According to Steam Charts, the record for Steam player concurrents stands at just 3,370 players, which is apparently a quirk of the game launching before Steam kept accurate player records.
Later today, a group of Valve superfans hopes to change this. Valve fansite LambdaGeneration, in association with major Valve YouTubers Noclick and Radiation Hazard, is running an event called #RememberPortal, urging players to band together and push Portal into an all-new dimension of concurrent player counts.
This is the latest in a string of Valve related record-busting attempts the trio has organised in the last few years. It all started back in 2021 with #BreakingtheBar, which launched Half-Life 2 like a gravity-propelled toilet to a new Steam record of 16,101 concurrent players, over 9,000 players higher than the previous record.
This was followed by similar attempts for Half-Life and its expansions Opposing Force and Blue Shift, all of which achieved new record player concurrents. LambdaGeneration even broke the record for Valve relic Ricochet earlier this year, despite the fact the event was an April Fool.
It's worth noting that some of these records have since been succeeded. Half-Life achieved a new Steam concurrent record of 33,467 during its 25th anniversary celebrations in November 2023, while Half-Life 2 almost doubled that number after hitting its 20th birthday last year.
There is also a potential wrinkle for this latest record attempt. While Steam Charts does indeed list Portal's all-time player concurrent at 3,370 (which is the number referenced in the event's press release) SteamDB puts that number significantly higher at 20,672. This spike apparently occurred in May 2010, which on the face of it seems like an odd time for Portal to suddenly get a rush of players.
At first, I suspected this might be due to the release of Portal 2, but that didn't arrive until almost a year later in April 2011. Looking closer, the spike coincides with Steam's rollout onto Mac. Portal was one of the debut titles for the Mac version of Steam, and was given away for free on both Mac and Windows for around a week following the rollout.
Hence, there's a reasonable chance that SteamDB's number is accurate, meaning the record breakers may have a bigger challenge ahead of them than was initially apparent.
Nonetheless, since everybody in the world should play Portal, I'd still love to see LambdaGeneration & co smash the record. The attempt kicks off at 15:00 GMT, with an official website for the event that will show a live player count when it begins. Players who get involved can also receive a special achievement on LambdaGeneration by sharing Portal fan art and setups.