| GoldSrc | |
|---|---|
 Official GoldSrc logo, depicting the Greek letter and scientific symbol,Lambda (λ) | |
 Screenshot fromHalf-Life | |
| Other names | GoldSource, Half-Life Engine |
| Developers | Valve,id Software |
| Initial release | November 19, 1998; 27 years ago (1998-11-19) |
| Written in | C,C++,Assembly language |
| Predecessor | Quake engine |
| Successor | Source |
| License | Proprietary |
GoldSrc (pronounced"Gold Source"), sometimes called theHalf-Lifeengine, is a proprietarygame engine developed byValve. At its core, GoldSrc is a heavily modified version ofid Software'sQuake engine. It made its debut in 1998 withHalf-Life and powered future games developed by or with oversight from Valve, includingHalf-Life'sexpansions,Day of Defeat and games in theCounter-Strike series.
GoldSrc was succeeded by theSource engine with the releases ofHalf-Life: Source,Half-Life 2, andCounter-Strike: Source in 2004.
The basis of GoldSrc is the engine used in the video gameQuake, albeit with heavy modification by Valve. While the engine served as the basis for GoldSrc,Gabe Newell said that a majority of the code used in the engine was created by Valve. GoldSrc'sartificial intelligence systems, for example, were essentially made from scratch.[1] The engine also uses some code from other games in theQuake series, includingQuakeWorld andQuake II.[2]
In 1997, Valve hired Ben Morris and acquiredWorldcraft, a tool for creating customQuake maps.[3][better source needed] The tool was renamedValve Hammer Editor and became the official mapping tool for GoldSrc. The engine supportsskeletal animation, which allowed for more realistic body kinematics and facial expression animations than most other engines at the time of release.[4]
The GoldSrc engine initially had no real name and was simply called the Half-Life engine. When the need arose for Valve to work on the engine without risking introducing bugs intoHalf-Life's codebase, Valveforked the code, creating two main enginebranches: one gold master branch, "GoldSrc", and the other "Src". Internally, any games using the original branch were referred to as "Goldsource" to differentiate it from the second branch, while the "Src" branch evolved into theSource engine.[5]
Valve released versions of the GoldSrc engine forOS X andLinux in 2013, eventually porting all of their first-party games using the engine to the platforms by the end of the year.[6][7]
Half-Life was Valve's debut title and the first to use GoldSrc. It received critical acclaim, winning over fifty PC Game of the Year awards.[8] The game was followed up with two expansions,Half-Life: Opposing Force andHalf-Life: Blue Shift, both of which ran GoldSrc and were developed byGearbox Software.[9][10]Half-Life: Decay, an expansion pack forHalf-Life only released onPlayStation 2, was released in 2001 alongsideHalf-Life's debut on the platform.[11] Unlike other games in the series, it never received an official version forWindows, however an unofficial version of the game was released byindependent developers in 2008.[12][13][14]Half-Life: Decay was the final iteration in theHalf-Life series to run on GoldSrc, with all future entries in the series using theSource andSource 2 engines.[15][16]
Valve developed several games using the GoldSrc engine, many of which were based on original user-made modifications. Valve'sTeam Fortress Classic, released in 1999, was developed primarily by two of the developers of theQuake modTeam Fortress.[17]Counter-Strike andDay of Defeat were also originallyHalf-Life modifications that Valve purchased the rights to and re-released as standalone titles.[18][19]Counter-Strike evolved into its own series with the debut of the Japanese arcade gameCounter-Strike Neo in 2003[20] and Valve's own follow-up in 2004,Counter-Strike: Condition Zero, both of which run on the GoldSrc engine.[21][22] Although Valve's further installments in the series starting withCounter-Strike: Source use the newer Source engine instead,Counter-Strike Online andCounter-Strike Nexon, two spinoff titles released byNexon in 2008 and 2014 respectively, use GoldSrc as their basis.
The GoldSrc engine was also used for a variety of third-party games and modifications not directly developed by Valve.Rewolf Software used the engine for the gameGunman Chronicles in 2000, and the PC version ofJames Bond 007: Nightfire was developed by Gearbox Software using a modified version of GoldSrc in 2002.[23][24][25]
Unofficial, community-mademodifications of GoldSrc have also been produced. Notable games includeNatural Selection,Cry of Fear andSven Co-op, with Valve'sTeam Fortress Classic,Counter-Strike, andDay of Defeat all being based on GoldSrc mods of the same names.Sven Co-op have since been released for free as a standalone game onSteam, which use a licensed derivative of the engine with their own customizations.
The Xash3D project and forks useQuake engine source code in part, as well as theHalf-LifeSDK, to recreate GoldSrc and run its various mods on different platforms.[26][27][28][29] The FreeHL and FreeCS ports also utilizeQuakeWorld code as well asclean-room reverse engineering.[30]
| Year | Title | Developer(s) | Publisher(s) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1998 | Half-Life | Valve | Sierra Entertainment,Valve (digital) |
| 1999 | Half-Life: Opposing Force | Gearbox,Valve | |
| Team Fortress Classic | Valve | Valve,Sierra Entertainment (digital) | |
| Sven Co-op | Sven Co-op team | Sven Co-op team | |
| 2000 | They Hunger | Black Widow Games | Black Widow Games |
| Counter-Strike | Valve | Sierra Entertainment | |
| Gunman Chronicles | Rewolf Entertainment | Sierra Entertainment | |
| Ricochet | Valve | Valve | |
| 2001 | Deathmatch Classic | ||
| Half-Life: Blue Shift | Gearbox,Valve | Sierra Entertainment,Valve (digital) | |
| Half-Life: Decay | Gearbox | Sierra Entertainment | |
| 2002 | James Bond 007: Nightfire | Eurocom,Gearbox | Electronic Arts |
| 2003 | Day of Defeat | Valve | Activision,Valve (digital) |
| Counter-Strike Neo | Namco | Namco | |
| 2004 | Counter-Strike: Condition Zero | Valve,Ritual Entertainment,Gearbox,Turtle Rock Studios | Sierra Entertainment,Valve (digital) |
| 2008 | Counter-Strike Online | Valve,Nexon | Nexon |
| 2013 | Cry of Fear | Team Psykskallar | Team Psykskallar |
| 2014 | Counter-Strike Nexon | Valve,Nexon | Nexon |
The first Valve game to be released through Activision will beDay of Defeat, aHalf-Life-powered first-person shooter set in World War II.
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