Portal 2 multiplayer abandoned

In speaking with 1UP Valve's Erik Wolpaw revealed the studio had been experimenting with competitive multiplayer in Portal 2.

"Along with co-op, [we had] the idea of sort of a competitive Portal multiplayer. We went down that path, actually, for a little while and had something up and running -- the best way to describe it is sort of speedball meets Portal. You know, a sports analog. And it quickly became apparent that while it's fun for about two seconds to drop portals under people and things like that, it quickly just devolves into pure chaos. It lost a lot of the stuff that was really entertaining about Portal, which was puzzle-solving. Cooperative puzzle-solving was just a much more rewarding path."

Valve had designed a game mode where the objective was to move a ball from one side of the room to the other, but apparently this quickly became a "hot mess".

Oh well, not every game needs competitive multiplayer, but it would have been interesting to experience...