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.

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