The developer of the now-cancelled Portal 64 demake has said they were not shocked when Valve asked him to stop work on the project.

In a video on YouTube, James Lambert said that it wasn't surprising to him when the Steam giant came knocking, not least because he was making a version of its title for a Nintendo console.

"This was not unexpected," he said.

Lambert also clarified what exactly had happened. He said that he was put in touch with Valve's lawyers who wanted to know more about Portal 64. During this discussion, he mentioned that he was "relying" on Nintendo's proprietary library – Lib Ultra – they told him to stop.

"I might not be a big enough target for Nintendo to come after Valve is so if they put their stamp of approval on the project then that could be grounds for Nintendo to come after them," he said. "So they didn't want to touch that and so I don't blame them at all. And I don't think you should either."

Lambert added that the project was probably "doomed" from the start.

Portal 64 was a demake that brought Valve's popular puzzle title to Nintendo 64. It, alongside the Source 2 version of Team Fortress 2, were killed last week.