Team Fortress 2 Classic scrap their open beta and new Valve rules likely mean they have to change the name

Team Fortress 2 Classic is an upcoming Source Engine mod based on Valve's Team Fortress 2, it was due to hold an open beta but they've had to scrap it.

In an announcement posted October 6th they noted: "In the final stages of the review process, we were informed that an app on Steam cannot be both a Mod and a Demo at the same time. Unfortunately, this was not caught by anyone at EMINOMA or at Valve until last Saturday, after initial reviews hadn't flagged it as an issue and gave us the mistaken belief that we were clear to ship."

Later in the announcement they mentioned some other concerns from Valve, in a heavily redacted section (as a bit of a joke). Turns out, Valve updated the rules noted on the Steamworks Documentation about shipping Source Engine Games / Mods. It now includes a section on the name of the games / mods that reads:

Clear Communication

Your mod should have a distinct identity, and should not suggest that it was created or endorsed by Valve. This extends to all places where you talk about your mod, including its title. We may deny titles that imply a mod being an official prequel, sequel or remake of a Valve title.

Bad titles:

• Ricochet 2
• Ricochet Classic
• Ricochet: Source

Better titles:

• Deflection – A Ricochet Mod
• Collider – A Ricochet Story

Spotted the change thanks to the work SteamDB do tracking everything. Oh wow, Ricochet 2 huh?

Overall, it seems fair enough, Valve provide a lot to developers to mess with their code in the Source SDK and so they don't want Steam customers to be confused thinking mods like this are in any way official.

At some point then, I expect Team Fortress 2 Classic to go through a rebrand with a newer name.