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GoldSrc ( ) is a proprietary
game engine A game engine is a software framework primarily designed for the development of video games and generally includes relevant libraries and support programs. The "engine" terminology is similar to the term "software engine" used in the software i ...
developed by
Valve A valve is a device or natural object that regulates, directs or controls the flow of a fluid (gases, liquids, fluidized solids, or slurries) by opening, closing, or partially obstructing various passageways. Valves are technically fittings ...
. At its core, GoldSrc is a heavily modified version of id Software's ''Quake'' engine. It originally made its debut in 1998 with ''
Half-Life Half-life (symbol ) is the time required for a quantity (of substance) to reduce to half of its initial value. The term is commonly used in nuclear physics to describe how quickly unstable atoms undergo radioactive decay or how long stable ato ...
'', and would power future games developed by or with oversight from Valve, including ''Half-Life'' expansions, ''
Day of Defeat ''Day of Defeat'' is a team-based multiplayer first-person shooter video game set in the European theatre of World War II on the Western front. Originally a modification of the 1998 game ''Half-Life'', the rights of the modification were purchas ...
'', and multiple games in the ''Counter-Strike'' series. GoldSrc was succeeded by the
Source engine Source is a 3D game engine developed by Valve. It debuted as the successor to GoldSrc in 2004 with the release of '' Counter-Strike: Source'' and '' Half-Life 2''. Updates to Source were released in incremental versions, with the engine being su ...
with the releases of '' Half-Life: Source'', ''
Half-Life 2 ''Half-Life 2'' is a 2004 first-person shooter game developed by Valve. It was published by Valve through its distribution service Steam. Like the original ''Half-Life'' (1998), ''Half-Life 2'' combines shooting, puzzles, and storytelling, and ...
'', and '' Counter-Strike: Source'' in 2004. However, Valve continues to support the engine with periodic updates.


Development

The basis of GoldSrc is the engine used in the video game '' Quake'', albeit with heavy modification by Valve. While the engine served as the basis for GoldSrc,
Gabe Newell Gabe Logan Newell (born November 3, 1962), nicknamed Gaben, is an American businessman and the president of the video game company Valve. Newell was born in Colorado and grew up in Davis, California. He attended Harvard University in the early ...
has stated that a majority of the code used in the engine was created by Valve themselves. GoldSrc's
artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech re ...
systems, for example, were essentially made from scratch. The engine also reuses code from other games in the ''Quake'' series, including ''
QuakeWorld ''Quake'' is a first-person shooter game developed by id Software and published by GT Interactive. The first game in the ''Quake'' series, it was originally released for MS-DOS, Microsoft Windows and Linux in 1996, followed by Mac OS and Sega ...
'' and ''
Quake II ''Quake II'' is a 1997 first-person shooter video game developed by id Software and published by Activision. It is the second installment of the Quake (series), ''Quake'' series, but not a direct sequel to ''Quake (video game), Quake''. The game ...
'', but this reuse is minimal in comparison to that of the original ''Quake''. In 1997, Valve hired Ben Morris and acquired , a tool for creating custom ''Quake'' maps. The tool was later renamed to
Valve Hammer Editor Source is a 3D game engine developed by Valve. It debuted as the successor to GoldSrc in 2004 with the release of '' Counter-Strike: Source'' and ''Half-Life 2''. Updates to Source were released in incremental versions, with the engine being succ ...
and became the official mapping tool for GoldSrc. The engine supports
skeletal animation Skeletal animation or rigging is a technique in computer animation in which a character (or other articulated object) is represented in two parts: a surface representation used to draw the character (called the ''mesh'' or ''skin'') and a hierarc ...
, which allowed for more realistic body kinematics and facial expression animations than most other engines at the time of release. Prior to the creation of the
Source engine Source is a 3D game engine developed by Valve. It debuted as the successor to GoldSrc in 2004 with the release of '' Counter-Strike: Source'' and '' Half-Life 2''. Updates to Source were released in incremental versions, with the engine being su ...
, the GoldSrc engine had no real title and was simply called "The Half-Life engine". When the need arose for Valve to work on the engine without risking introducing bugs into ''Half-Life''s codebase, Valve forked the code from the Half-Life engine, creating two main engine
branches A branch, sometimes called a ramus in botany, is a woody structural member connected to the central trunk of a tree (or sometimes a shrub). Large branches are known as boughs and small branches are known as twigs. The term ''twig'' usually ...
: one gold master branch titled "GoldSrc" and the other "Src". Internally, any games using the original branch were referred to as "Goldsource" in order to differentiate it from the second branch, which evolved into the Source engine. Eventually, "GoldSrc" became something of a moniker for the engine and was adopted as the official title externally. Valve released versions of the GoldSrc engine for
OS X macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and lapt ...
and
Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...
in 2013, eventually porting all of their first-party games utilizing the engine to the platforms by the end of the year.


History


''Half-Life'' series

''
Half-Life Half-life (symbol ) is the time required for a quantity (of substance) to reduce to half of its initial value. The term is commonly used in nuclear physics to describe how quickly unstable atoms undergo radioactive decay or how long stable ato ...
'' was Valve's debut title and the first to use GoldSrc. It received critical acclaim, winning over fifty PC Game of the Year awards. The game was followed up with two expansions, '' Half-Life: Opposing Force'' and '' Half-Life: Blue Shift'', both of which ran GoldSrc and were developed by
Gearbox Software Gearbox Software is an American video game development company based in Frisco, Texas. It was established as a limited liability company in February 1999 by five developers formerly of Rebel Boat Rocker. Randy Pitchford, one of the founders, se ...
. '' Half-Life: Decay'', an expansion pack for ''Half-Life'' only released on
PlayStation 2 The PlayStation 2 (PS2) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Sony Computer Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on 4 March 2000, in North America on 26 October 2000, in Europe on 24 November 2000, and in Australia on 3 ...
, was released in 2001 alongside ''Half-Life'' debut on the platform. Unlike other games in the series, it never received an official version for
Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...
, however an unofficial version of the game was released by
independent developers An indie game, short for independent video game, is a video game typically created by individuals or smaller development teams without the financial and technical support of a large game publisher, in contrast to most "AAA" (triple-A) games. ...
in 2008. ''Half-Life: Decay'' was the final iteration in the ''Half-Life'' series to run on GoldSrc, with all future entries in the series using the
Source Source may refer to: Research * Historical document * Historical source * Source (intelligence) or sub source, typically a confidential provider of non open-source intelligence * Source (journalism), a person, publication, publishing institute o ...
and
Source 2 Source 2 is a video game engine developed by Valve. The engine was announced in 2015 as the successor to the original Source engine, with the first game to use it, ''Dota 2'', being ported from Source that same year. Since then, Valve's '' Artif ...
engines.


Other Valve games

Valve developed several games using the GoldSrc engine, many of which were based on original user-made modifications. Valve's ''
Team Fortress Classic ''Team Fortress Classic'' is a first-person shooter game developed by Valve Corporation, Valve and published by Sierra Studios. It was originally released in April 1999 for Windows, and is based on ''Team Fortress'', a Mod (video gaming), mod f ...
'', released in 1999, was developed primarily by two of the developers of the '' Quake'' mod ''
Team Fortress A team is a group of individuals (human or non-human) working together to achieve their goal. As defined by Professor Leigh Thompson of the Kellogg School of Management, " team is a group of people who are interdependent with respect to info ...
''. ''
Counter-Strike ''Counter-Strike'' (''CS'') is a series of multiplayer tactical first-person shooter video games in which teams of terrorists battle to perpetrate an act of terror (bombing, hostage-taking, assassination) while counter-terrorists try to preven ...
'' and ''
Day of Defeat ''Day of Defeat'' is a team-based multiplayer first-person shooter video game set in the European theatre of World War II on the Western front. Originally a modification of the 1998 game ''Half-Life'', the rights of the modification were purchas ...
'' were also originally ''Half-Life'' modifications that Valve purchased the rights to and re-released as standalone titles. ''Counter-Strike'' evolved into its own series with the debut of the Japanese arcade game ''
Counter-Strike Neo ''Counter-Strike'' (''CS'') is a series of multiplayer tactical first-person shooter video games in which teams of terrorists battle to perpetrate an act of terror (bombing, hostage-taking, assassination) while counter-terrorists try to preve ...
'' in 2003 and Valve's own follow-up in 2004, '' Counter-Strike: Condition Zero'', both of which run on the GoldSrc engine. Although Valve's further instalments in the series starting with '' Counter-Strike: Source'' use the newer Source engine instead, ''
Counter-Strike Online ''Counter-Strike Online'' is a tactical first-person shooter video game, targeted towards Asia's gaming market released in 2008. It is based on ''Counter-Strike'' and was developed by Nexon with oversight from license-holder Valve. It uses a m ...
'' and '' Counter-Strike Nexon: Zombies'', two spinoff titles released by
Nexon Nexon Co., Ltd. is a global video game publisher, listed in Japan, that specializes in online Virtual World games for PCs, consoles and mobile. Nexon is one of the world’s ten largest interactive game companies based on market capitalization a ...
in 2008 and 2014 respectively, utilize GoldSrc as their basis.


Third-party games and modifications

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 game ''
Gunman Chronicles ''Gunman Chronicles'' or ''Half-Life: Gunman'' (previously ''Gunman: TC'' and simply ''Gunman'') is a first-person shooter space Western video game originally created as a mod by the now defunct Rewolf Software. Gunman Chronicles was originally ...
'' in 2000, and the PC version of '' James Bond 007: Nightfire'' was developed by Gearbox Software using a modified version of GoldSrc in 2002. Unofficial, community-made modifications of GoldSrc have also been produced. Notable games include ''
Natural Selection Natural selection is the differential survival and reproduction of individuals due to differences in phenotype. It is a key mechanism of evolution, the change in the heritable traits characteristic of a population over generations. Charle ...
'', ''
Cry of Fear ''Cry of Fear'' is a survival horror game developed by independent Sweden, Swedish studio Team Psykskallar. Though originally a mod (video gaming), mod for the video game ''Half-Life (video game), Half-Life'' in 2012, it was released as a standal ...
'' and '' Sven Co-op'', with Valve's ''Team Fortress Classic'', ''Counter-Strike'', and ''Day of Defeat'' all being based on GoldSrc mods of the same names. ''Cry of Fear'' and ''Sven Co-op'' have since been released for free as standalone games on
Steam Steam is a substance containing water in the gas phase, and sometimes also an aerosol of liquid water droplets, or air. This may occur due to evaporation or due to boiling, where heat is applied until water reaches the enthalpy of vaporization ...
, both of which use a licensed derivative of the engine with their own customisations.


Games using GoldSrc


References

{{Video game engines, state=autocollapse 1998 software Game engines for Linux Id Tech Video game engines