It's been a long time... and Valve knows it. People want to jump back into the world of Portal, but after the sequel's delay some may have become mildly discouraged.

That's why it's nice to finally see that a press release has been shown off to the public detailing a partnership between Valve and Electronic Arts that will have the publishing giant bringing Portal 2, Spike VGA's Most Anticipated Game of 2011, to retailers everywhere.

EA will publish Portal 2 for every single "brick-and-mortar" retail version. That means the Xbox 360, PS3, PC, and Mac versions of the game will have a nice big EA logo slapped into the corner. The Steam version of Portal 2 will not require EA at all, which seems to make a lot of sense.

Valve holds full control when it comes to Portal 2's release date. This means that if Valve for whatever reason feels that the game needs to be delayed again then they are more than welcome to do so, and publishing giant EA can't do anything about it. This isn't necessarily bad news for everyone because it just means that Valve wants to put out the same type of Triple-A game that they've become famous for. If the sequel to Portal needs more time then it's nice to not have EA breathing down their neck.

This isn't the first time Valve and EA have teamed up to provide gamers with actual boxed copies of games, as is evident by both retail versions of the Left 4 Dead series (and pretty much every other title Valve has made as well). The partnership seems to be benefitting both companies, so the fact that Valve has decided to go with EA again doesn't come as a massive shock.

Portal 2 will hit retailers, with the help of EA, late February 2011 for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC, and Mac.

Will you be buying your copy of Portal 2 via retail or is Steam more up your alley?

Source: EA