Codename: Gordon

Released in 2004, Codename: Gordon was a 2D Half-Life 2 demake that vanished from Steam. Its removal wasn't censorship, but a “hardcoded wound”: an embedded link to its defunct developer's lapsed domain, hijacked by cybersquatters. Valve hid the page but left the files intact. This reveals how software dies: it doesn't rot, its external dependencies decay. Today, much of our digital history survives only through inertia—saved simply because no one bothered to finish deleting it. - Full Review