Valve takes down a malicious Steam game that was released last week, but any player who started the game will likely want to run a scan on their PC.

This sort of thing is atypical for Steam. The automated systems for game updates can sometimes crash PCs when the updates are problematic, but so far Valve has done a very good job of keeping actual malware out of the Steam store. (Can’t say the same for Apple, Google, or Microsoft .)

The gaming giant told affected users: "Consider fully reformatting your operating system" © 2024 TechCrunch. All rights reserved. For personal use only.

Reported to have amassed over 7,000 players, a free-to-play web3 game named PirateFi launched on Steam last week and was subsequently taken down for containing "malicious files". Users reportedly found out about this takedown as Valve took to notifying players that their rigs could be compromised.

Valve has sent a warning email to users that installed removed game PirateFi on Steam, explaining that it included suspected malware.