12TB Valve Leak Surfaces Portal 2 Beta and HL2: Ep3 Weapon

A huge cache of Valve data began circulating online and is now being picked apart by data miners, according to PC Gamer. The archive weighs in at 12 terabytes and covers a ten-year window from 2003 to 2013, with files reportedly tied to Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Left 4 Dead, Portal 2, and more. The suspected origin is Valve's old Steam2 content-server infrastructure, which was replaced by SteamPipe in March 2013, which lines up neatly with the archive's cut-off date.

The headline find so far is the complete Portal 2 beta from 2009, something fans have wanted to get their hands on for years. That build tells a noticeably different story from the shipped game: GLaDOS guides you through the early test chambers via pre-recordings rather than Wheatley, and other personality cores play a much bigger role. Separately, Valve-focused YouTuber Gabe Follower reports the leak also contains the Weaponizer, an unfinished weapon previously connected to Half-Life 2: Episode 3. The Weaponizer first surfaced in a 2011 leak inside a directory labelled "ep3," and a gun resembling it also appeared in footage shown during Valve's 20th anniversary documentary on Half-Life 2.

Also reportedly in the archive are files for F-STOP, a cancelled puzzle game sometimes called "Aperture Camera" that was in development for roughly a year before Valve scrapped it. It featured a photograph-based mechanic where pictures of the environment could be placed as 3D objects in the world. No working build of F-STOP appears to be included, only files. PC Gamer notes it has reached out to Valve for comment and will update when a response arrives.