Co-operation is order of the day for Valve. From games such as 2008’s Left 4 Dead is a simplistic zombie based shooter which relies on the co-operation of 4 individuals for success against the slavering horde, to their internal design structure of Cabals – groups of individuals tasked with different bits of game problem to solve. But the release of their classic Half-Life’s Design Toolkit with the game code proved the initial game changer – one that opened up modification audiences to the infinite potential of this retail release.

Team Fortress 2 Trailer

In a nutshell, Team Fortress 2 is a crowd sourced class-based multiplayer game. A development team led by John Cook and Robin Walker, two Australian college students who created the original Team Fortress modification for iD Software’s Quake back in 1996. Cook and Walker were part of a blossoming ‘mod-culture’ whose growth paralleled that of the evolving and increasingly lucrative first person shooter.

Helpful graphical user interfaces spread via Bulletin boards, world wide web v1.5 and cover mounted disc on games mags allowed users to dig into the data files of first generation games like Doom, Hexen and Wolfenstein, and make designing levels a simple proposition, amalgamating basic computer-aided design ideas (of placing vectors and walls between them, and then defining attributes to that environment). From this blossoming community of modders, Cook and Walker of Quake World Team Fortress rapidly became seen as bedroom pros, with their small team being bandied about mod forums worldwide – partly due to the variation and depth of its nine different class of characters.

This open-sourced approach to gaming allowing the audience to produce levels created a crowd-sourced production line which begat games like Counterstrike – the iconic multiplayer FPS that created internet memes aplenty, solidified clans and in general (check this out for fandom), revolutionised the online multiplayer shooting experience – to  a legit ‘e-sports’ past-time, one which laid the foundations for Battlefield and Call of Duty to build upon.

Valve saw fit to bring Cook and Walker into the fold in 1998 to create a proper ‘gamers’ game’, one to satiate a vociferous internet modding community utilizing the free Half-Life Development Kit. Team Fortress Classic arrived, to show the potential of this software and a bit of creative application – and also to whet their appetite for what was to become a standalone title – Team Fortress 2.

Team Fortress 2 originally started life as a Call of Duty-style military shooter, but metamorphosed over a nine-year ‘vaporware’ development period where next to nothing with heard about the game. But during this time, it gained a unique cartoonish visual style segregating it from the pack, a fresh humorous narrative and a rewarding, balanced team ethic that straddled mission-based levels as well as out-and-out team warfare.

The story of Reliable Excavation & Demolition (RED) vs. Builders League United (BLU) is marked out in classes of offense, defence and support – each featuring a trio of vibrant characters, rendered in an exaggerated ‘The Incredibles’-esque visual style, based on the art of Dean Cornwell, J. C. Leyendecker and Norman Rockwell.  Initially, a requirement to differentiate between the nine classes, this OTT visual style has become one of the games most iconic elements, fuelling a back story to each character and making cult stars of each of the voice actors.

Each class has distinct strengths and weakness, requiring team mentality to efficiently function but crucially rewarding this team activity. Play as the flame-throwing Pyro, the room clearing Heavy, or The Spy, the baseball fan-styled Scout, Midwestern Sniper, the Gestapo-lite Medic or the iconic Demoman – all variants familiar to Black Ops, Battlefield and Brink players. But TF2 revolutionized adopting these techniques, and folding them into a multiplayer FPS that rewarded you for fulfilling your obligation to your team.

Team Fortress 2 was one of the first games to attach functionality to play statistics. Improvement, class-specific activity, completion of tasks, even game time. Each reward was then linked back to Valve’s online Steam community, buffing your personal stats and leaderboarding pro players – which doubled as digital portal for delivery of upgrades, new content – and now the digital distribution of non-Valve software, too. Releasing independent titles initially, it has now become one of the key hubs for the digital PC software purchase.

Going free over two years after release has created a controversy amongst people that have purchased it, but the injection of new blood and new investment is crucial to the continued success (and development) of TF2. The new free-to-play TF2 is supported by microtransactions for unique in-game equipment – a circulatory system ensuring an income stream to deliver regular content and keep programmers employed and teams fiscally viable – to keep the money men happy. New ideas, external to the community bubble are vital to keep the game agile and relevant to new players.

Valve’s incredible success is not only due to the high quality of human-focused software. It’s a social-by-design structure, that emphasizes reward for solving problems – and this is eminently visible in their games, from the team defense and cover of Left 4 Dead to the gravity based conundrums of Portal and Half Life 2. But Team Fortress 2 has to be heralded as more than just another FPS – a milestone in the FPS genre and gaming at large –one that remixed to past to be culturally relevant, and in doing shaped the future of the FPS genre. Catch a slab of formative gaming for free as soon as you can.

Team Fortress 2 is available FREE for Mac and PC at www.teamfortress.com