Our Picks For The Top 5 Valve Games of All-Time
The announcement of several more Valve games being in development according to Valve boss, Gabe Newell, was surely a surprise to many. “We definitely have games in development that we’re going to be announcing. It’s fun to ship games, Alyx was great. To be back doing single-player games, that created a lot of momentum inside the company to do more of that.” It looks like Valve is in development of several more single-player games, which is great news for fans of Valve’s single-player games like Half-Life and Portal (yes, I know that Half-Life has the potential to be played with multiple players, but the core of the game is centered around a single player experience.) With this recent announcement, we’ve decided to take a look at some of our favorite Valve games!
5. Team Fortress 2
Team Fortress 2 was developed and published by Valve and released on October 10, 2007. Team Fortress 2 is a multiplayer first-person shooter and is the sequel to the original 1996 Team Fortress mod developed for Quake and the 1999 remake, Team Fortress Classic. When it originally released, it was a part of The Orange Box bundle for Windows and Xbox 360, but was released as a standalone game in April, 2008. Team Fortress 2 was critically acclaimed for its art direction, gameplay, humor, as well as the use of character in a multiplayer-only game.
4. Garry’s Mod
Garry’s Mod, sometimes abbreviated as “GMod” was developed by Facepunch Studios and published by Valve in November, 2006 for Windows, September 2010 for Mac OS X, and June, 2013 for Linux. The base game of Garry’s Mod itself has no set objectives, but the true content of the game comes from other developers and members of the community in the form of mods and are installed separately from the base game. The most famous of these mods is the game mode known as “Trouble in Terrorist Town” and was a massively popular mode for content creation, alongside the “Prop Hunt” game mode mod.
3. Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
Probably one of the most popular titles on this list is Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. This is one of the biggest esports titles across the globe and has been since its release in August, 2012. Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is another multiplayer first-person shooter and is the fourth entry into the Counter-Strike series. It was initially released for Windows, macOS, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3, with a Linux version releasing in 2014. The game has been the host to many esports tournaments over the years including Majors – tournaments specifically organized or co-sponsored by Valve – with prize pools reaching up to $1,000,000! That’s a lot of cash.
2. Left 4 Dead
The Left 4 Dead series is an incredibly popular series of post-zombie apocalypse cooperative first-person shooter-survival horror games that have been published by Valve. The first release of Left 4 Dead was in November, 2008 and the latest release was only a year later with the release of Left 4 Dead 2 coming in November, 2009. Since the release of Left 4 Dead 2, the Left 4 Dead community has been begging Valve to release another installment, though it doesn’t seem like we’ll be getting anything anytime soon, especially since Gabe Newell has announced that most, if not all, of the upcoming Valve games, will be single-player. Another reason I don’t think we’ll ever see a Left 4 Dead 3 is the fact that it’s been 12 years since the release of Left 4 Dead 2, the latest release in the Left 4 Dead series. I think it’s more than likely safe to say that the ship has sailed on any hope of Valve developing a Left 4 Dead 3.
1. Portal
Portal has been one of, if not, the most popular of the Valve games library. With its release of Portal in October, 2007 – Valve launched one of the most popular platformer/puzzle video games in history. In April, 2011 – Valve released the sequel to 2009’s Portal, Portal 2. Both titles are set in the Half-Life universe and center on a woman named Chell, who is forced to undergo a series of tests within the Aperture Science Enrichment Center, by a terrifyingly evil artificial intelligence being, GLaDOS. GLaDOS controls the facility as well as the tests that the player must undergo; most of these tests require the use of the famous Portal Gun (Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device.) Portal and Portal 2 were very popular for players of all ages. While I could potentially see a Portal 3 being one of the Valve games currently in development, I think it’s probably pretty doubtful that we’ll ever get a third installment, considering it’s been nearly 10 years since the release of Portal 2.
I hope you enjoyed our list of our picks for the top 5 Valve games! Let us know if you agree, or think that we missed some titles. I’ve never played Dota, so I can’t put that on the list, I’m sorry!
