Aperture's Unseen Hero | Doug Rattmann | Full Portal Lore

I love how Rattmann actually is a hero and basically Chell's savior despite her never seeing him. Having someone you can never thank but know that you owe your life too, adds so much drama and tragedy to Chell's experience.

I'd like to think Rattmann was somehow still alive during Portal 2. Granted, if so, he would probably have been killed when Wheatley tore the facility apart but, still that's my thought.

it's crazy how a character you never see has such a large background.

The scary part, they honestly would've been in more danger outside. They probably dodged a massive, MASSIVE bullet with the word "combine" etched on it.

I love how Henry’s idea of safety first is telling Doug to use his non-dominant hand to reach through a set of gears and power on the morality core. Like “you might lose your hand so we should make sure it’s not the one you write with”

Props to the cameraman for going to a deadly laboratory to film this 👍🏻

I absolutely love the portal games. at first glance it's lighthearted fun playing with portals but the real story of aperture is so dark and full of tragedy, I loved plying through and piecing it together and finding out what really happened.

If we ever were to play as Doug in a portal game I want to see how they incorporate his metal issues have the company cube talk to use, have Glados mock and gaslight us, show us how he sees the world

I love how the pictures get more scruffy and less smooth as the story goes on to show Doug’s deteriorating mind

I always wondered if GLaDOS didn't subconsciously avoid killing Doug and Chell. Of the researchers in Aperture Doug was the only one that didn't think abusing her was a good idea. And GLaDOS has some sort of connection to Chell from back when she was a Child when GLaDOS was first turned on as shown by the potato plant in Portal 2. Don't think we will even find out. sm

I remember finding one of Rattmans dens and when you could hear the mad ramblings it really freaked me out. I always considered him struggling to survive and not really helping but that comic really adda to his character.

I think that he got woken up at some point and survived at least until Wheatley started wrecking the facility with his stupidity since you can still see his dens on the new testing track (what would be the point of putting murals and advice in testing tracks other than Chell’s in the first game?), pointed her to the fallen single-portal device under the test where you were introduced to it, scribbled the warnings for the co-op bots to not give GLaDOS the discs revealing the location of a hidden test subject cryo-vault, and you can even hear him rambling behind a wall in one.

I would love a survival horror Rattman Portal game set after or even during Portal 2. That would be amazing.

Slight correction there: Doug's voice can be heard around any mural in the second game.

I want to believe Ratman is alive somewhere since Portal 2 has something interesting I didn't know about. The Final Transmission achievement involves bringing a radio into one of Ratman's dens, afterwards an odd signal is sent through. As it turns out, the signal is an SSTV signal, a picture sent by audio. The picture is the companion cube sitting on the moon. Ratman's always stayed one step ahead of the Aperture AI.

As someone with ADHD I have trouble memorizing a lot of information in the long term, so I'm really grateful you usually repeat a lot of storybeats of the lore in your videos. I know you probably do it so you don't alienate new viewers, but it does help me get a good grasp at this universe Valve has created. So yeah, thanks lad.

God I remember Rattmann being the biggest thing me and my brother would talk about.

“See? People with brain damage are the real heroes.”

I always loved Rattmann’s story across both Portal games and the amazing Lab Rat comic. Even back in the first game, the presence of the dens added so much atmosphere and mystery to the situation. I think it would be really cool to see a spin-off game where we play as Doug, possibly a prequel similar to Half-Life: Alyx that could take place at different time periods before, during, and after Portal. As always, keep up the great work with your videos!

Portal ratman where you play as him exploring the facility in a schizo version of system shock could be cool. You could really lean into the survival horror parts and flesh out aperture lore a lot.