Earlier today EA’s Crysis 2 was removed from Steam, leading many to speculate that the publisher intended to make the title exclusive to its new Origin online portal.

However, EA has now stated that the decision to remove Crysis 2 was made by Steam operator Valve.

Crysis 2 was in violation of a new set of regulations handed down by Valve, says the publisher.

In a statement to IGN, EA writes, “It's unfortunate that Steam has removed Crysis 2 from their service. This was not an EA decision or the result of any action by EA.

“Steam has imposed a set of business terms for developers hoping to sell content on that service – many of which are not imposed by other online game services.

“Unfortunately, Crytek has an agreement with another download service which violates the new rules from Steam and resulted in its expulsion of Crysis 2 from Steam.

“Crysis 2 continues to be available on several other download services including Origin.com.”

Valve has not clarified what these new conditions are.