Since the launch of Portal 2 on April 19th 2011, the PC gamers of Portal 2 have been wondering why Portal 2 PC did not ship with local split-screen co-op support. While there were some very advanced gamers who managed to get the game working in split-screen, it had some issues and most could not get it to work.

Valve has finally addressed this issue and has updated Portal 2 with local split-screen co-op support. However, people wanting to use this new feature will need to update their Steam client to the “Big Picture” beta client. This can be done by opening Steam, going to Settings and on the first tab (Account) under “Beta participation” click Change and select the Steam Beta Update from the dropdown menu. After doing so, Steam will require a restart and will update to the new Big Picture Beta client. Portal 2 will then automatically update and you can then use the split-screen in your co-op.