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Team Fortress is a team- and class-based online multiplayer video game mod originally based on the first person shooter Quake, made by id Software. It was designed and written by Robin Walker, John Cook and Ian Caughley in 1996. The mod's gameplay has caught on with a large following of fans, which has spurred many developers to create similar gamemodes on other engines. In August 1999, after the development team was hired by Valve, Team Fortress was ported to Valve's GoldSrc engine in the form of Team Fortress Classic. The premise of the game is a class-based battle, typically between two teams, colored red and blue. Players are defined by which class they select (the classes being Scout, Soldier, Pyro, Demoman, Heavy Weapons Guy (Heavy for short), Engineer, Medic, Sniper and Spy) with each class having strengths and weaknesses. Each class also has unique weapons (e.g. Pyro has the flamethrower and Heavy has the minigun) and abilities (e.g. Scout being able to run the fastest and Medic being able to heal teammates). The Civilian class is the unique class on Escort mode where a team of Bodyguards have to escort him to a destination, while the Assassins try to kill him. Team Fortress has evolved into an entire genre as fans of the original modification have created a multitude of slightly different versions for various games.
A player can choose to be on either the red or the blue team. On community maps or through the use of custom skins, players may also choose to be on a green or yellow team. The objectives of play can vary, including traditional objectives such as capture the flag or controlling a point(s) on the map. On April 13, 1997 in Version 2.5 Beta A, Team Fortress introduced head-shots to the FPS genre. |
