Steam prank leaves several players with 'Shrek 5' in their libraries

A mysterious 'Shrek 5' game has been appearing in random Steam libraries over the last year.

As reported by Vice, for the last year gamers have been finding a game called 'Shrek 5' mysteriously appear in their Steam library. To make things even weirder, it’s not actually the highly anticipated Shrek sequel we’ve all obviously been waiting for. Technically, it’s not even a game either. You can’t even search for "Shrek 5" on the storefront, it’s like it only exists for select players. 

Once accessed via the lucky player’s library, the game opens up to a photo of Shrek with the iconic Smash Mouth song All Star playing. Unfortunately, it isn’t actually a miracle (or curse, depending on how you feel about the big green fella) and there is instead, a pretty simple explanation. 

For a full breakdown of how all these players were blessed with the Shrek 5 game, take a look at this YouTube video by Wulf Fy. As explained in the video, the 'Shrek 5' game is actually the indie game SCRAM - a seemingly now-abandoned free-to-play multiplayer shooter. 

What apparently happened is that SCRAM’s creator changed the name of their game and its contents in Steam, filling the game's empty shell with ogre-y goodness. What they didn’t count on, however, is that due to not owning the rights to Dreamworks’ Shrek, they were banned from Steam before they could change it back. Presumably, without intervention from Valve, SCRAM will now forever be the unofficial fifth entry in the Shrek franchise, so if you ever picked the shooter up, you might just be the proud owner of a piece of animation history.

To get over the heartbreak of not actually being able to play Shrek 5, here’s a list of upcoming PC games to look forward to.