Portal 2: Community Edition enters open beta with map editing and lighting upgrades

Portal 2: Community Edition is now in open beta

Portal 2: Community Edition is out in open beta, according to PC Gamer's Apr. 18 report. The update is aimed at the modding side of Portal 2 rather than a new Valve campaign, with the article highlighting map editing improvements, a new lighting engine, volumetric fog, and other tooling changes.

The source does not frame this as a retail release or paid DLC. It is a community-facing platform update for creators who build Portal 2 maps and experiments. That distinction matters because the likely audience is not only returning players, but also modders who want more room to push custom chambers, visual effects, and cross-game experiments.

The r/pcgaming post was created on Apr. 19 at 03:45:57 UTC and cleared the subreddit score floor during this crawl. The poster described the project as notable because Portal 2 is still getting community infrastructure more than 15 years after release. Commenters reacted in the same direction: several said they expect new community-made maps, while one noted that the map-building tools appear to be part of the overhaul.

No price, supported storefront list, or final 1.0 date was included in the crawled source text. The concrete item is the open beta state and the toolset changes around map editing, lighting, and volumetric fog.

Source: PC Gamer and the linked r/pcgaming discussion.