In Portal, there are six advanced chambers and six challenge maps in addition to the story mode that can be completed and reward achievements for doing so. This guide will show you a trick to beat each of these levels using console commands to bypass the skill element of each one.

Although your first choice might just be "sv_cheats 1; noclip", this will NOT work. It seems Gaben, GLaDOS, and the scientists at Aperture Laboratories foresaw us test subjects doing this and have installed measures that prevent runs using this method from registering in game. This means you won't get achievements from these runs and they won't show up as your personal best. If you complete a run after enabling sv_cheats, you will see this when you enter the elevator at the end of the level:

In order for our illegitimate runs to count towards those sweet, sweet achievements, we must bypass this cheat detecting mechanism by using the save feature.

First we must use sv_cheats in order to enable noclip. This will allow us to fly through the level (literally) and negate any time/steps/portal challenges. You might be asking, "I thought sv_cheats doesn't work?!?" However, it only works if we use some tricks discussed below.

First, you will want to make sure you have a key bound to bring up the console. The default key is "`", but you can change it if you don't have it or it is inconvenient to press. Go to options in the main menu and click on "Keyboard". Scroll down to "Miscellaneous" and at the bottom of this section you will find "Toggle developer console". Edit the keybind to your heart's desire.

Next, select the level you want to "complete" and load it up. Once you are in, press the newly bound key to bring up the console. In the box that appears, type in "sv_cheats 1; noclip" (without the quotations marks, dummy) and press ENTER (or click on the "Submit" thingy). If input correctly, the console will read:

] sv_cheats 1; noclip
noclip ON

Now you can fly through the level, but make sure to avoid hazards such goo and high energy pellets as they can still damage you and you could die. If you want to prevent death you can type in "god" to enable godmode (no damage taken) or "buddha" to enable buddha mode (no dying). However, make sure not to enter the elevator before completing the next step.

If you were to enter the elevator in your current state, you would obviously see the red "Cheated" text appear next to your score/time. Thus, you must disable sv_cheats (but not noclip, strangely) and save before doing so.

First, pull the console up before entering the elevator, type in "sv_cheats 0", and press ENTER (or click "Submit"). Next, click on "Save Game" on the left side, choose "New Save Game" in the list of saves to overwrite, and press ENTER (or click "Save"). Once you are returned to the game and the grey "Saved..." text has appeared in the middle of your screen, press ESCAPE and click "Load Game" on the left side of your screen. Look for the save you just made (autosaves will have a blue portal with a black background as their icon, manual saves will have a freeze frame of the part of the level it is at), select it, and press ENTER (or click "Load"). You can now walk (or fly if you didn't disable noclip) into the elevator and the "Cheated" text will not appear on your score!

This method can be used on all of the bonus maps to get the achievements associated with them. However, sv_cheats and noclip must re-enabled on every level you want to use it on. I suggest copying "sv_cheats 1; noclip; god" to make the process much quicker. Here are the steps again, but this time in less detail:


Thank you for reading my guide, and I hope you have fun!