Meet sky_night_01! This skybox was originally an official (but unused) skybox in Team Fortress 2, seemingly added with the original Heavy update back in 2008, but got overwritten when Pipeline released with its own version of sky_night_01. Now, over a decade later, I've managed to recover it as sky_lostnight_01! It's a little rough, I'll admit, but it's got character!

The sky itself is an edit of the Gold Rush sky. There are two versions of the skybox in this file; The unedited, recovered version of the skybox (listed as "sky_night_02" inside), and the version renamed by myself for easier file management. (listed as "sky_lostnight_01" inside). The VMTs should work, but if they don't then please let me know!

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A long, long time ago, in a TF2 landscape far removed from ours, stood an early, early early early version of arena_well. On this version of arena_well, a version so very much like our own, stood a skybox. An odd skybox for the map, a peculiar "sky_day01_01." I found this quite odd, and the wiki page for the Arena version of Well even stated that the map got an updated skybox on March 6th, 2012. I even searched for footage, and lo and behold there was some.

So, do you want to know something interesting about sky_day01_01? It's the default skybox texture for a map. I knew this already, and it got me wondering; "Was this not supposed to be here?" So I did some digging, and asked around a bit. Eventually, we dragged up two different TF2Maps threads. One, being this strange thread, and another being about the error in Well itself.

Let's focus on that first thread for a moment. One of the comments on the first page, by @Brandished, states "I doubt it, I agree with Acegikmo, it looks a bit rough for something Valve would put out (on-purpose ). It probably was a prototype sky for an entirely new TF2 map that Valve forgot to remove from the gcf." Isn't that intriguing, hmm? The night skybox was in the gcf of TF2? Well, then where is it nowadays?

Boom. This is sky_night_01, the skybox that originally debut officially with Pipeline. But you know what's interesting about this skybox? It can be found on maps made BEFORE 2009, despite "only officially releasing" on May 21st, 2009 via the Sniper vs. Spy Update. Well, I have evidence for you that not only did sky_night_01 exist before 2009, but that it was originally a completely different texture! >:0


Meet arena_nightshift_b1, an Arena map that began development closely after Arena itself had been released (aka, 2008). The image on the left here is an image taken directly from that thread, and the image on the right is one that I've taken in-game in 2024. Do you already see the difference here? I'm just... floored, honestly. Absolutely astonished, that this could even exist. And the best part? We still have it.


Meet our hero of the story, sky_night_02. This is that lost skybox, dude. This was the skybox that was originally going to be on Pipeline, and... it still exists, miraculously. In 2009, a remake of Left 4 Dead's final level of the first campaign was released onto Gamebanana, aptly titled No Mercy. Amazingly, the creator managed to keep a copy of the original skybox after it had seemingly gotten overwritten by Pipeline's final skybox (sky_night_01) in May of that same year, and it brings forth an astonishing view in the map.

So, now we're at today. Fifteen years later, we've made it, and I have this skybox here for you today. It's made by Valve, and it was technically official, so you should not have any legal issues by using it. Please, give it a try.

Credits:
Valve, for making the skybox.
@Fiddleford, for being the ultimate information-finding friend.
@B.A.Baracus, for being the man to keep this skybox alive.