TF Source 2 and Portal 64 Taken Down by Valve: What Are TF Source 2 and Portal 64?

Valva has recently sent waves of shock amongst the fans with two new announcements. Particularly, fans were left disappointed with the cancellation of two projects after the company announced DMCA notices to them. This forced the projects to shut down. 

It was rather surprising to see Valve react in such a way to these projects especially since the platform has been open in accepting fan games in the past. Nevertheless, the announcement of Valve has hammered the final nail in their development.

What is TF Source 2?

Team Fortress: Source 2 is a fan project that looks forward to rebuilding the venerable Team Fortress 2, but in a modern Source 2 engine. However, the project will no longer see the light of the day. The team that was working on the project named Amper Software announced on Twitter that they were forced to pull the plug after they received a DMCA takedown notice from Valve.

Notably, the Team Fortress rebuild was in an early state when the makers shared a first look at it in 2021. Till that point too the project looked quite promising. The team which included more than 20 volunteers showed off numerous character classes in action in the first look.

These included the Pyro, Scout, Sniper, Demoman, and Soldier, as well as completed work on a full map called Arena Well. Later the team shared another brief clip in June 2023 which showed that there had been a lot of progress and had come along very nicely since the 2021 initial look.

What is Portal 64?

The maker and an avid fan James Lambert has spent years creating something that is believed to have no practical reason to exist. Namely, a version of the game Portal that runs on the Nintendo 64. Notably, it wasn’t just some 2D version, it was the real, blue-and-orange-oval, see-yourself-sideways Portal experience.

Last year, James even shared a preview named “First Slice” of Portal 64 which was ready for anyone who wished to try it. It was a kind of beta and was free for all. A “First Slice” showed 13 of the original game’s test chambers were ready. James stated that he intended to get to all of the original’s 19 chambers in his version. 

Why did Valve take down TF Source 2 and Portal 64?

There are two different reasons why Valve has decided to take down both the games. Talking of Team Fortress 2, Valve asked Amper Softwares to take it down since it was distributing Team Fortress 2 assets without permission. The fan project, Team Fortress: Source 2, was looking at recreating the experience and mechanics of originally Valve’s original game Source 2 engine, which is a new modern, and updated engine than its original.

On the other hand, the reason for taking down Portal 64 was that it relied on Nintendo’s proprietary libraries. Portal 64 was also a fan project that wanted to revive Valve’s 2007 classic game on the Nintendo 64 hardware.

Apart from the cancellation of the two titles, Valve also announced a new set of rules of how it would handle AI generated gaming content distributed on the platform.