TF2C - Team Fortress 30th

1999 — Making it Big

Team Fortress Classic

Released April 1, 1999

Valve was dead-set on getting the next Team Fortress game on the GoldSrc engine, and in exchange for this, they accommodated TeamFortress Software at their offices throughout the spring of 1998, desk-to-desk with the people working on Half-Life. In time, Valve bought the company altogether and hired two of the three modders. (Ian Caughley graciously declined.) Walker and Cook would involve themselves eagerly in the development of Half-Life Deathmatch and the Half-Life SDK.

Valve's philosophy at the time was that valuable game franchises shouldn't go to waste (please don't laugh at them), so work began on Team Fortress 2: Brotherhood of Arms. Team Fortress was also ported to GoldSrc in 1999 as Team Fortress Classic — "Classic" to distinguish it from Team Fortress 2, which would surely, surely come out within a year or two.

Throughout its lifespan, Classic introduced (a precursor to) Control Points, VIP, and what we now call Attack/Defend as official gamemodes; gave Engineer his Teleporters; and survived a gruesome three-year migration from a standalone release to a Steam game (please don't laugh at them or us). This is arguably the TF game which Classified most heavily poaches from.

A History of Violence

Once, there was nothing. The desktop computer was a cold and uninviting appliance, fit only to receive suspicious emails from deposed African royalty and occasionally print out pornography. Would-be PC gaming enthusiasts stared morosely into their Solitaire windows, fingers twitching, bloodlust unsatiatied, wishing they could play a pulse-pounding sicko game where you jump over death pits and steal flags and kill people.

Then id Software released Quake, and the nascent online shooter community swarmed around it — and with it, the nascent online shooter modding community. Three Australian programmers, big men in their savage remote island's shooter scene, licensed out the QuakeC development suite on day one, and set to work on their long-planned team deathmatch mod of Quake, where players would choose their weapons from a few themed loadout presets. (Classes, as they came to be called.) This was Team Fortress, and it was scrimmaged at length by the Melbourne LAN scene before finally going up for download on a tepid winter day^[1] in 1996.

As of today, we've been jumping over death pits and stealing flags and killing people for thirty years. In recognition of our forebears, and out of longing for the days when developing a video game mod could get you a real job, slip on the nostalgia goggles with us and get to '96ing.

^ 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Hemisphere Update

The Team Fortress 30th update releases on August 24, 2026. Check here for more tomorrow!