For all the jokes the gaming populace makes that Valve doesn't release games, we have to give credit where credit is due. When Gabe Newell's notoriously opaque company does put out a product, it tends to be a big deal.
But maybe Valve's most important contribution to the industry (outside creating the leading PC marketplace in Steam) was the creation and release of the Source engine. Thanks to its flexibility and easy-to-access SDK, the Source engine has led to countless fan games and mods for the games developed with it. However, plenty of full releases have been created using itꦐ too.
15 ꦑ Day Of Defeat
When most people talk about Day of Defeat, they are actually talking about Day of Defeat: Source. The original Day of Defeat was actually a mod based on the first Team Fortress (itself a standalone mod). That first Day of Defeat was one of the last games developed by Valve that was published by an outside publisher, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Activision.
By the time the total conversion, Day of Defeat: Source, came out Valve had released 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Half-Life 2: Episode 1, Counter-Strike, and launched S🌃team. As a result, any PC shooter fans using this new-fangled launcher lookin♎g for some WW2 action all took to DoD Source, and thus a PC cult classic was born.
14 GoldenEye: Source ▨
We said that the Source engine was beloved by modders, but when they weren't putting Shrek or Peter Griffin in 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Garry's Mod, sometimes these hobbyist developers came together to release full-blown projects... They just might not have sought the IP holders' approval first.
GoldenEye: Source was a loving recreation of the N64 classic, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Goldeneye's multiplayer for PC. Was it promptly taken down by MGM and the James Bond Company? Of course, it was. A shame.
13 Ze💜no Clash꧟
We were going to say that games like Zeno Clash don't get made anymore, but they do, because developer ACE Team still exists and puts out strange games almost every year. That is the best way to describe Zeno Clash, though - it's weird in the extreme.
A first-person melee brawler that focuses as much on building a strangely beautiful and gross world, there aren't many games like Zeno Clash. If you've never played it before, you owe yourself taking the time to look at is odd and engrossing art at least.
12 ༺ 💖 Dear Esther
Often cited as the first walking sim, Dear Ester was created as less of a game and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:more of an art piece experiment. You simply explore an Island picking up notes, listening to the narration, and unraveling 𒈔the story that happened before you got he♎re.
Despite the engine being old and the game being dated in many ways, there is still a haunting beauty to🦩 Dear Esther. And we had to recognize the impact it has had on the video game industry.
11 Dark Messia🎐h: Might And Magic 𒊎
168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Do you like ragdoll physics? Do you like games that have a dedicated kick button? Do you like it when dum🐟b enemies loiter dangerously close to chasms and cliffsides? Thenꦿ do we have a game for you!
Before Arkane was best known for 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Dishonored, the studio was wetting its beak in the immersive space with Dark Messiah. It's an FPS full of exaggerated physics and level design that encourages you to kill goblins in the most hilarious ways - and is still very fun years later.
10 💙 Left 4 Dead & Left 4 Dead 2 🐷
There are very few co-op games that have left such a lasting legacy as 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Left 4 Dead. Bot🙈h these games are just pure, distilled, co-op perfection.
Over a decade and a half after their release, it is still pretty easy to find an online lobby, as pretty much everyone that owns a PC has these in their library. Because of that, it's always fun to go back to with friends. L4D is timeless.
9 Dota 2
Speaking of timeless multiplayer experiences, Dota is one of the few MOBAs, along with LoL, that survived past the initial popularity of the early 2010s. However, unlike Left 4 Dead, it hasn't remained a staple of Steam installs by being an unchanging constant in PC gamers' lives. Instead, Valve has totally overhauled the game, its characters, and items more times than we can count.
It seems to have worked though. Even though the game has since migrated off of the Source engine and🔯 onto Source 2, it still sees hundreds of thousands of players each day, and the International is still the biggest event of the esports calendar every year.
8 🌠 Team Fortress 2
168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Team Fortress 2 is a game that has been through it all since its release in 2007. From the highs of constant season updates, and the rush for unusual hats,🍸 to the lows of content droughts an🅘d hacked servers.
There are few communities as embattled as the TF2 one, but we can hardly blame them for still coming back to the game. Even after all these years, it's still probably the best-balanced hero shooter of all time.
7 Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodli❀nes ꦦ
The Source engine really does seem to be inextricably tied to games that have shaped the industry, and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines is no exception. One of only a handful of games developed by Troika, Bloodlines is a cult classic role-playing game inspired by the creative leads' work on the original Fallout games.
Many of these leads would go on to found 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Obsidian Software and work on games like 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Fallout: New Vegas, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:The Outer Worlds, and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Pillars of Eternity - all of which dr🎃ew h💟eavy inspiration from the mechanics of Bloodlines.
6 The Stanley Parable ൩
If Dear Esther was the first walking sim, then 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:The Stanley Parable is almost the end point of the genre.
Not only meta and fourth-wall breaking, but The Stanley Parable is also a𝐆 cutting contemplation of what it means to be a game developer, player agency, and so much more.