Fans Restore Valve's Shelved F-STOP Prequel From Leaked Steam2 Data
Fans restored F-STOP, a Portal prequel Valve shelved, using assets from a 12TB Steam2 archive posted online on August 29.
1 source 1h ago
Reporting from 1 source: Automaton.
Why it matters
The restoration runs without Valve's permission, so the question now is whether Valve tolerates a near-complete build of a game it froze and never released.
Key Facts
- F-STOP was in development from 2007 as a prequel to Portal before Valve froze it.
- LunchHouse Software disclosed F-STOP's Aperture Camera gameplay in a December 2019 video series.
- A Steam2 archive of over 12TB was published online on August 29.
- The Steam2 archive held most F-STOP assets but not its source code or mapsrc data.
- A Valve Cut Content moderator said the initial map data provider asked for $1,000 before the data was released for free.
The archive carried most of the game's assets but not its source code or Source map data; a person who provided that data later surfaced in the Valve Cut Content community, and reports from players describe the result as almost 99% complete.
F-STOP was in development from 2007, after Portal shipped, and was positioned as a prequel. Valve froze it and released Portal 2 instead. Its systems stayed unknown for years until LunchHouse Software disclosed them in a December 2019 video series: an Aperture Camera copied and pasted objects in the world, similar to Superliminal. No playable build was ever made public.
The August 29 Steam2 archive supplied most of the assets. The source code and Source map data were not in that archive, and the person who released them has not been identified. A moderator of Valve Cut Content said the initial map data provider asked for $1,000, but the data was released for free.
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