Valve delists a free Steam game with malware and issues a warning to its players

Valve has pulled the plug on a new Steam game, PirateFi. It made its way to the platform on February 6 and was removed on February 10. That is, it has been available to download for only four days. As for the reason it was removed, the company suspects it to be malware.

Per Valve, users who had downloaded the game should run a full system scan with a trusty antivirus. It also suggests reinstalling the operating system if you've downloaded PirateFi. The good part is that, given that the game was live for only four days, it couldn't draw much attention.

So, even if it's actually malware, PirateFi may have infected only a small number of systems. Gamalytic believes that about 859 users have downloaded it, while SteamDB shows that the game only had 165 followers with a peak player count of only five.

As for the title itself, PirateFi aimed to compete against the likes of Rust. It was a free game with all the classic elements of survival sim, including base building, farming, resource gathering, and a large playable map. It also appears that the developer took some inspiration from Sea of Thieves (standard edition curr. $35.19 on Amazon).

During the time it was live on Steam, this free game got relatively good reviews as well. To be specific, PirateFi had 88% positive reviews. While all that may make it seem like it had potential, the developer, Seaworth Interactive, has no social presence, which is a big red flag. Regardless, it's great to see Valve taking such swift measures against games like this.