I clearly don't understand how Portal is connected with Half-Life... (SPOILERS)

[Trespasser10]

During episode 2 while looking at the data that Alyx collected... the footage of the borealis said it was a legend of another company when I heard Dr. Kleiner said "Aperture Science was trying to compete with Black Mesa" my brain snapped and I have no idea that Half-Life and Portal were related and I didn't know... I played Portal first then Half-Life... I have to be doing a lot of thinking... If episode 3 comes out I'll have my answers

[angstlicht]

episode 2 and portal came out together in the orange box, it really wasn't that shocking at the time. portal 2 had a big time skip and a bit of a style change, but russell from half life alyx is a bit of a wheatley type character to keep up with that.

the main difference is everything especially in portal 2 is comedy-coded in a lot of places where half life 1 would play things straight. it's not that i can't accept the adventure comedy-creep, with the black mesa facility it's easy to tell it was dangerous and often dangerous on purpose as some kind of 4D mind game.

it's the same basic structure, but the tonal difference between cave johnson and gman is about as big as it could be. CJ drunkenly talking over the PA about mantis men in portal 2 and watching military gun down your coworkers and fighting the hivehands and nihilanth in half life are very different experiences, with clearly different intent.

[GamerXT]

The connection isn't obvious in Portal 1, apart from that projector screen showing the profit comparisons between Aperture and Black Mesa before facing GLADOS.

Portal 2 is where they show the connection with the ship that uses teleportation technology, that I guess teleported to the Arctic as seen in Episode 2.

I'm not sure what role it would play in Half Life though.

[Snark]

Portal isn't canon.