Public interest in a modern remake of Speedball 2 was rekindled by a high-profile Half-Life 2 modification, SourceBall. The SourceBall project began development in November 2004, and garnered interest from both Valve (many of whom claimed to be fans of the original Speedball 2), and from Mike Montgomery of The Bitmap Brothers. SourceBall was featured in a Steam News article broadcast to the Steam community, and was used by Valve in their 2005 presentation at The Gathering in Norway. Following a change of leadership in early 2006, development on the SourceBall project ended, but public demand for a new version of Speedball 2 remained high.