Portal 2 just got a new update, and it improves local cooperative play

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You can now play locally with one player on a controller, the other on mouse and keyboard.

(Image credit: Valve)

Valve has been on a bit of an update spree of late: after years of torment, Half-Life 2 NPCs can finally blink again thanks to a recent fix. Now it's Portal 2's turn, and while the improvements and fixes aren't quite as weird, they are probably more useful.

The biggest fix comes in the way of new local cooperative tweaks. It's now easier to have one player on a controller and another on mouse and keyboard, which was previously only possible with a few workarounds. Local coop support is now available from the community coop map queue, too.

Meanwhile, with the newly released Remote Play Together functionality, it's possible to play split-screen Portal 2 with a remote Player 2 who doesn't even own the game. That's not in the patch notes, but it's worth making note of. Portal 2 has online cooperative support, but both people need to own the game.

Here are the full patch notes:

Windows
- Fixed an issue where in-game audio caption language would use the system language setting instead of the Steam language setting.

Controller support
- Improved camera control through Steam Input – the sensitivity scale has changed so you may need to increase your configuration’s sensitivity.
- Add local coop support for one controller player and one Mouse/Keyboard player.
- Add local coop support from the community coop map queue. Quickplay is still not supported.
- Fix XInput related options being hidden when connecting a Steam Input enabled controller using a Gamepad configuration.
- Fix the challenge mode screen not having enough footer buttons available through Steam Input.
- Fix several more bugs where the incorrect action set could be set in Steam Input.
- Fix several cases where having a controller connected but not active would affect the glyphs and settings screen options.

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Shaun Prescott
Shaun Prescott
Australian Editor

Shaun Prescott is the Australian editor of PC Gamer. With over ten years experience covering the games industry, his work has appeared on GamesRadar+, TechRadar, The Guardian, PLAY Magazine, the Sydney Morning Herald, and more. Specific interests include indie games, obscure Metroidvanias, speedrunning, experimental games and FPSs. He thinks Lulu by Metallica and Lou Reed is an all-time classic that will receive its due critical reappraisal one day.