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Valve’s canceled Portal follow-up F-Stop is now fully playable thanks to that 12TB Steam leak and some dedicated fans
Valve’s cancelled project F-Stop, once planned as a prequel to Portal, has become playable after fans recovered its source code and map data from a large Steam data leak. The discovery gives players a chance to experience a lost Valve game, offering a glimpse of an abandoned direction for the Portal series.
The leak, 12 terabytes of Steam data from 2003 and 2013, included builds of games such as Portal 2, Left 4 Dead and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. F-Stop’s puzzles centre on taking photographs to manipulate the environment, and its introduction features an earlier version of Cave Johnson’s narration. Valve reportedly cancelled it after playtesters questioned why a Portal follow-up did not include the Portal Gun.
In short
- Fans recovered a playable version of Valve’s cancelled F-Stop.
- Its puzzles use photographs to change the environment.
- Playtesters questioned the absence of the Portal Gun.
Explained simply
Portal is a puzzle game series from Valve, the company behind Steam. Its games are known for the Portal Gun, which creates linked openings that let players move through rooms and solve puzzles.
F-Stop was an abandoned project planned as a prequel to Portal, set before the events of the series. Instead of using a Portal Gun, its puzzles revolved around taking photographs to change the environment; the project also featured an earlier version of narration by Cave Johnson, a character from Portal 2.
The project’s cancellation offers a glimpse of a different direction Valve considered for the series. Its recovery from leaked Steam data has allowed fans to make the unfinished game playable.