The developers behind two big Team Fortress 2 mods have temporarily halted downloads of their projects, and nobody seems to know why. The folks behind both Open Fortress and TF2 Classic both say that the suspension is "due to an arrangement with Valve", and will only be temporary. For now, fans have been left to speculate on the reasons why.

We've reached out to Valve for comment, but have not yet received a response. On the TF2 Classic Discord, one of the developers says "it's nothing to worry about, that's all we're willing to say right now".

Fans are split in speculating on what this all means. Valve has historically been quite supportive of the modding community. Steam features built-in mod support for many games through the Workshop, and games like Counter-Strike, Dota, and Team Fortress itself all originally started as mods. Given both that fact and modders' assurances that these hiatuses are temporary, it's unlikely Valve is threatening the projects in any way. Even fan games like Black Mesa have been sold on Steam as official products.

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