Team Fortress and Portal fan projects shut down by Valve
Valve issued a DMCA takedown notice to the team behind fan project Team Fortress: Source 2 this week, while the developer of Portal 64 announced the project had been canceled due to potential copyright issues with Nintendo.
The details:
Team Fortress: Source 2, a project with the goal of bringing Valve's classic team-based shooter to the company's newer Source 2 engine, has been canceled following a DMCA takedown from Valve. The reason for the takedown is that the project used TF2 assets without permission in Source 2 and Facepunch's S@box. The development has been on hold since September 2023, with the fan team now referring to the takedown as the "nail in the coffin."
The development of Portal 64 has also ended after its creator, James Lambert, received a message from Valve requesting that it be scrapped due to its use of proprietary Nintendo libraries. Portal 64 was intended to be a demake of the original Portal for the Nintendo 64, and its demo "First Slice" was only released last month.
Valve has usually been very supportive of fan projects, providing mod support for many of its titles via the Steam Workshop, which includes custom maps, assets, sounds, and game modes. As a result, mods for some of the company's first-party games, such as Insurgency, Dota, and Counter-Strike, have evolved into standalone titles. It's somewhat surprising that it would take action against not one but two projects in the same timeframe, although both may have led to further legal action in the future.
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