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GoldSrc (pronounced "Gold Source"), sometimes called the ''Half-Life'' engine, is a proprietary
game engine A game engine is a software framework primarily designed for the development of video games which generally includes relevant libraries and support programs such as a level editor. The "engine" terminology is akin to the term " software engine" u ...
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 Slurry, slurries) by opening, closing, or partially obstructing various passageways. Valves are technically Pip ...
. At its core, GoldSrc is a heavily modified version of
id Software id Software LLC () is an American video game developer based in Richardson, Texas. It was founded on February 1, 1991, by four members of the computer company Softdisk: game programmer, programmers John Carmack and John Romero, game designer T ...
's ''Quake'' engine. It made its debut in 1998 with ''
Half-Life Half-life is a mathematical and scientific description of exponential or gradual decay. Half-life, half life or halflife may also refer to: Film * Half-Life (film), ''Half-Life'' (film), a 2008 independent film by Jennifer Phang * ''Half Life: ...
'' and powered future games developed by or with oversight from Valve, including ''Half-Life'' expansions, '' Day of Defeat'' and games in the ''Counter-Strike'' series. GoldSrc was succeeded by the Source engine with the releases of '' Half-Life: Source'', '' Half-Life 2'', and '' Counter-Strike: Source'' in 2004.


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), also known by his nickname Gaben, is an American video game developer and businessman. He is the president and co-founder of the video game company Valve Corporation. Newell was born in Colorado and ...
said that a majority of the code used in the engine was created by Valve. GoldSrc's
artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is the capability of computer, computational systems to perform tasks typically associated with human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and decision-making. It is a field of re ...
systems, for example, were essentially made from scratch. The engine also uses some code from other games in the ''Quake'' series, including '' QuakeWorld'' and ''
Quake II ''Quake II'' is a 1997 first-person shooter, first-person shooter game developed by id Software and published by Activision. It is the second installment of the Quake (series), ''Quake'' series, following ''Quake (video game), Quake''. Develope ...
.'' In 1997, Valve hired Ben Morris and acquired , a tool for creating custom ''Quake'' maps. The tool was renamed
Valve Hammer Editor Source is a 3D game engine developed by Valve. It debuted as the successor to GoldSrc in 2004 with the releases of '' Half-Life: Source'', '' Counter-Strike: Source'', and '' Half-Life 2''. Valve used Source in many of their games in the follow ...
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 polygonal or parametric mesh representation of the surface of the object, and a hierarchical set ...
, which allowed for more realistic body kinematics and facial expression animations than most other engines at the time of release. 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 into ''Half-Life''s codebase, Valve forked the code, creating two main engine branches: 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 the Source engine. Valve released versions of the GoldSrc engine for
OS X macOS, previously OS X and originally Mac OS X, is a Unix, Unix-based operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 2001. It is the current operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. With ...
and
Linux Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...
in 2013, eventually porting all of their first-party games using the engine to the platforms by the end of the year.


History


''Half-Life'' series

''
Half-Life Half-life is a mathematical and scientific description of exponential or gradual decay. Half-life, half life or halflife may also refer to: Film * Half-Life (film), ''Half-Life'' (film), a 2008 independent film by Jennifer Phang * ''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. 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, L.L.C is an American video game developer, 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 Pitch ...
. '' 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 Interactive Entertainment, Sony Computer Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on 4 March 2000, in North America on 26 October, in Europe on 24 Novembe ...
, 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 Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...
, however an unofficial version of the game was released by independent developers 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 and Source 2 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''. '' Counter-Strike'' and '' Day of Defeat'' 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'' 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 installments in the series starting with '' Counter-Strike: Source'' use the newer Source engine instead, '' Counter-Strike Online'' and '' Counter-Strike Nexon'', two spinoff titles released by
Nexon Nexon Co., Ltd. (formerly ) is a South Korean video game developer and publisher. It develops and publishes titles including ''MapleStory'', ''Crazyracing Kartrider'', ''Sudden Attack'', ''Dungeon & Fighter'', ''The First Descendant'', and ''Bl ...
in 2008 and 2014 respectively, use 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'' 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 Heredity, heritable traits characteristic of a population over generation ...
'', '' Cry of Fear'' 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. ''Sven Co-op'' have since been released for free as a standalone game on
Steam Steam is water vapor, often mixed with air or an aerosol of liquid water droplets. This may occur due to evaporation or due to boiling, where heat is applied until water reaches the enthalpy of vaporization. Saturated or superheated steam is inv ...
, which use a licensed derivative of the engine with their own customizations. The Xash3D project and forks use
Quake engine The ''Quake'' engine (part of id Tech 2) is the game engine developed by id Software to power their 1996 video game '' Quake''. It featured true 3D real-time rendering. Since 1999, it has been licensed under the terms of GNU General Publi ...
source code in part, as well as the ''Half-Life'' SDK, to recreate GoldSrc and run its various mods on different platforms. The FreeHL and FreeCS ports also utilize '' QuakeWorld'' code as well as clean-room reverse engineering.


Games using GoldSrc


References

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