Crusher

“

Had a bit of a brain wave. There I was, smashing some steel plates together, and I thought, 'yes, it's deadly!' But what's missing? What's missing? And I thought lots of sharp bits welded onto the flat bits. — Wheatley

”

A Crusher in Portal 2.

The Crusher was first introduced in Portal 2, and is a derivative of Aperture Science's Panel technology. Crushers are an environmental hazard present in several test environments. If the player makes contact with a Crusher, they will be forced into the nearest hard surface and killed instantly. Crushers appear as large grey panels with a number of steel spikes firmly attached to them.

Crushers become more frequent during the final parts of the game (particularly in Chapter 9: The Part Where He Kills You), and also appear frequently in Co-op mode.

Function

Any object, including the player, will be perforated instantly upon contact with a Crusher. When active, a loud crunching noise is emitted in order to warn the player that they are approaching a Crusher, thereby allowing the player to avoid them.

In Co-op mode, if the player comes in contact with a Crusher while floating in an Excursion Funnel, the damage caused will be periodic until the player moves away or dies.

Trivia

• Crushers were originally intended to appear in Portal, but were removed in the early stages of game development due to the additional complexity they added to test chambers.^{[citation needed]}
• Crushers appear in Portal: The Flash version, a 2D flash game released prior to Portal. Later, they appeared in the Portal: The Flash Version MapPack modification, and were eventually introduced into Portal: Still Alive.
• Crushers originally lacked spikes and were ordinary steel plates before Wheatley modified them, believing that there was something missing. This contradicts the Panels video however, as a spiked crusher is clearly visible in the last part of the video, and Cave Johnson states that they can be purchased from Aperture Science.

See also

• Mechanics