According to foreign media reports, 13TB of Steam game library data (from 2003 to 2013) was leaked online within the past 24 hours. The leaked files were made public via torrents, and investigators reported that they contain beta versions of thousands of games, including Portal 2, Left 4 Dead 2, Dragon Age: Origins, and Batman: Arkham Asylum.
It's currently unclear who obtained the leaked data, but the leak appears to be real and is easily found online. Due to the massive amount of data, it has taken some time to organize, but a list of discovered content is being actively compiled on GitHub.
It's worth noting that the leak, dubbed "Steam2," contains data from 2003 to 2013. Given the surge in video game file sizes over the past decade, 13TB of pre-2014 data is much more significant than we initially thought.
Because of this, a lot of unverified information has already appeared online. Consider this an early warning: any so-called "leaks" about Half-Life 3 that appear online in the next week or two should be viewed with great skepticism.
However, some interesting information has already been confirmed, including the fact that a beta version of Portal 2 does indeed exist.
Recently, videos of players trying out this version have started appearing online. Because of this, Elan Ruskin, a former Valve developer who worked on Half-Life 2: Episode Two, Left 4 Dead 2, Portal, and Portal 2, posted on X earlier today discussing the existence of "pre-release" versions of Portal 2 and Left 4 Dead 2.
According to X user Gabe Follower (who may have been the first to publicly reveal the leak), the leaked data came from a "publicly accessible endpoint" on Steam servers. An "endpoint" here refers to a URL where users can send requests and receive responses.
As far as I know, endpoints are usually public but require some form of authorization to access. With that in mind, if Gabe Follower's source is correct, I'm curious whether this means the leaked data is related to the 2013 release of SteamOS.
According to Gabe Follower, the "Steam2" repository data only goes up to 2013, which may be related to Valve switching to a "new storage system" in 2013. For reference, Steam was released on September 12, 2003, and SteamOS 1.0 was released in December 2013, which coincides with the start and end dates of the leaked Steam2 repository content.