Fez and Portal are perfect partners in this short free mashup

Phil Fish may have infamously cancelled Fez 2 almost a decade back. But thankfully, a curious mash-up has given the blocky platformer new life (and the vague promise of cake).

Released back in June, Feztal is a short proof-of-concept from Krzyhau, who you might recall from those cursed Portal 2 maps earlier this year. As part of a long-running series that twisted Valve's puzzler into wild "what if?" scenarios, he posted a short video that asked "what if Portal 2 was Fez". Turns out, it only took around a month to discover it'd make for a damn fine puzzle game—though I'd somehow missed its full release before now.

It's a shame I did, mind, because it's shocking how naturally Portal's mechanics fit into Fez. That game, if you don't remember, was a 2D platformer that let you rotate the world along a 3D axis to explore and solve puzzles. Adding portal-able surfaces that persist between dimensions feels like an effortless addition to that form.

But Krzyhau has also absolutely nailed Fez's aesthetic. Yes, he's flat-out cribbed a few sounds and animations here and there, but from a bespoke title card to a synth-flavoured reimagining of the Portal soundtrack, Feztal really does feel like an official spin-off. The only shame is its length, getting its point across in only a few screens that last maybe 10 minutes, ending in a room scrawled in Fez's fake language (itself a puzzle that Krzyhau notes may require "end-game Fez knowledge").

That said, what little there is has plenty of legs. And whether it's from Krzyhau or someone else, Feztal makes a strong case for a full game based on this marriage of mechanics. Feztal is currently free to download over on Itch.

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20 years ago, Nat played Jet Set Radio Future for the first time, and she's not stopped thinking about games since. Joining PC Gamer in 2020, she comes from three years of freelance reporting at Rock Paper Shotgun, Waypoint, VG247 and more. Embedded in the European indie scene and a part-time game developer herself, Nat is always looking for a new curiosity to scream about—whether it's the next best indie darling, or simply someone modding a Scotmid into Black Mesa. She also unofficially appears in Apex Legends under the pseudonym Horizon.