Counter-Strike is a tactical first-person shooter game developed by Valve. It was initially developed and released as a Half-Life modification by Minh "Gooseman" Le and Jess Cliffe in 1999, before Le and Cliffe were hired and the game's intellectual property acquired. Counter-Strike was released by Valve for Microsoft Windows in November 2000, and is the first installment in the Counter-Strike series. Several remakes and ports were released on Xbox, as well as OS X and Linux.
Half-Life is a 1998 first-person shooter game developed by Valve Corporation and published by Sierra Studios for Windows. It was Valve's debut product and the first game in the Half-Life series. The player assumes the role of Gordon Freeman, a scientist who must escape from the Black Mesa Research Facility after it is overrun by alien creatures following a disastrous scientific experiment. The gameplay consists of combat, exploration and puzzles.
Half-Life 2 is a 2004 first-person shooter (FPS) game developed and published by Valve Corporation. It was published for Windows on Valve's digital distribution service, Steam. Like the original Half-Life (1998), Half-Life 2 is played entirely from a first-person perspective, combining combat, puzzles, and storytelling. It adds features such as vehicles and physics-based gameplay. The player controls Gordon Freeman, who joins a resistance to liberate Earth from the Combine, a multidimensional alien empire.
Source is a 3D game engine developed by Valve. It debuted as the successor to GoldSrc in 2004 with the releases of Half-Life: Source, Counter-Strike: Source, and Half-Life 2. Valve used Source in many of their games in the following years, including Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Dota 2, and the Portal and Left 4 Dead franchises. Other notable third-party games using Source include most games in the Titanfall franchise, Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines, Dear Esther, The Stanley Parable and Garry’s Mod. Valve released incremental updates to the engine during its lifetime. Source was succeeded in 2015 by the release of Source 2.
In shooter games, rocket jumping is the technique of using the knockback of an explosive weapon, most often a rocket launcher, to launch the shooter airborne. The aim of this technique is to reach heights, distances and speed that standard character movement cannot achieve. Although the origin of rocket jumping is unclear, its usage was popularized by Quake and Team Fortress 2.
Day of Defeat: Source is a team-based online first-person shooter multiplayer video game developed by Valve. Set in World War II, the game is a remake of Day of Defeat. It was updated from the GoldSrc engine used by its predecessor to the Source engine, and a remake of the game models. The game was released for Microsoft Windows on September 26, 2005, distributed through Valve's online content delivery service Steam. Retail distribution of the game was handled by Electronic Arts.
Team Fortress 2 (TF2) is a multiplayer first-person shooter game developed and published by Valve Corporation in 2007. It is the sequel to the 1996 Team Fortress mod for Quake and its 1999 remake, Team Fortress Classic. The game was released in October 2007 as part of The Orange Box for Microsoft Windows and the Xbox 360, and was ported to the PlayStation 3 in December 2007. It was released as a standalone game for Windows in April 2008, and updated to support macOS in June 2010 and Linux in February 2013. It was made free-to-play in June 2011, and is distributed online through Valve's digital retailer, Steam.
Half-Life 2: Deathmatch is a multiplayer first-person shooter video game developed by Valve. Released on Steam on November 30, 2004, it uses many of the assets from Half-Life 2 and its Source engine. It features new levels, optimized for multiplayer arena play, and a few new weapons. Also included are portions of the game's source code, which were the basis for many early Source-based multiplayer modifications. The game is the successor to the popular multiplayer component of the original Half-Life, but is offered as a separate product from Half-Life 2. Deathmatch, like Half-Life's multiplayer, does not develop any part of the plot or story of the Half-Life series.
Half-Life is a series of first-person shooter games created by Valve. The games combine shooting combat, puzzles and storytelling, and are played entirely from the first-person perspective.
The Orange Box is a video game compilation containing five games developed and published by Valve. Two of the games included, Half-Life 2 and its first stand-alone expansion, Episode One; had previously been released in 2004 and 2006 as separate products. Three new games were also included in the compilation: the second stand-alone expansion, Half-Life 2: Episode Two; the puzzle game Portal; and Team Fortress 2, the multiplayer game sequel to Team Fortress Classic. Valve also released a soundtrack containing music from the games within the compilation. A separate product entitled The Black Box was planned, which would have included only the new games, but was later canceled.
Insurgency: Modern Infantry Combat is a multiplayer tactical shooter total conversion mod for Valve's Source engine, developed by the Insurgency Development Team and published for Windows, macOS, and Linux on January 7, 2007. Set during the Iraq War, the game follows the conflict between the United States Marine Corps and the Iraqi insurgency.
Gang Garrison 2 is an open-source indie video game "demake" of Valve's Team Fortress 2. Inspired by the 3D graphics of Team Fortress 2, it takes place in a 2D, 8-bit environment, while retaining its online multiplayer gameplay. The game was started by TIGSource users "mrfredman" and "MedO", with other users contributing to development. It was conceived as an entry into the 2008 TIGSource "Bootleg Demake" competition.
GoldSrc, sometimes called the Half-Lifeengine, is a proprietary game engine developed by Valve. At its core, GoldSrc is a heavily modified version of id Software's Quake engine. It made its debut in 1998 with Half-Life and powered future games developed by or with oversight from Valve, including Half-Life's expansions, Day of Defeat and games in the Counter-Strike series.
Dino D-Day is a multiplayer team-based first-person shooter video game developed and published by American studios 800 North and Digital Ranch. It was released for Microsoft Windows on April 8, 2011.
Robin Walker is an Australian video game designer best known for co-developing Quake Team Fortress, Team Fortress Classic, Team Fortress 2, and Half-Life: Alyx.
Team Fortress 2 Classic is a 2014 modification of Team Fortress 2, initially developed by Danielmm8888 and various contributors, before later forming a team under the name Eminoma to continue work on the mod. Defining itself as a "re-imagining of the 2008-2009 era of the original Team Fortress 2", it restores the character shading of the game's beta, reimplements cut content, removes many later additions to the game’s content and lore, and adds new content intended to evoke the spirit of older updates to the game.
Team Fortress comics is a comedy-action webcomic series published from 2009 to 2024 by Valve Corporation as a tie-in to the 2007 video game Team Fortress 2. The game's website began releasing comics in 2009 to promote major updates, and in 2013 launched a standalone 7-issue comic series simply titled Team Fortress under a dedicated team of writers and artists, concluding in 2024 after several internal delays. Where the Team Fortress games were designed as open-ended multiplayer shooters without a fixed storyline, the comics explore the player characters' lives after the events of the games, alongside an extensive fictional chronology focusing on the Mann family of business owners and an extremely powerful mineral called Australium. The series has been billed as "the most labyrinthine story in Valve history", and received praise for its narrative significance to the games and their fandom. A print collection was published in 2011.
