2007 · Bundle / compilation · Valve Corporation · First-person shooter · Puzzle
The Orange Box
Bundle / compilation
The Orange Box is a bundle that includes five titles from Valve: Half-Life 2; Half-Life 2:Episode 1; Half-Life 2: Episode Two; Team Fortress 2, the sequel to the game that put class-based, multiplayer team warfare on the map; and Portal, the game that blends puzzles, first person action, and adventure gaming to produce an experience like no other.
- Released
- 10 October 2007
- Platforms
- LinuxPlayStation 3WindowsXbox 360macOS
- Genres
- First-person shooterPuzzleShooter
- Developers
- Valve Corporation
- Publishers
- Valve Corporation
- Series
- Team Fortress
- Modes
- MultiplayerSingle-player
- Perspective
- First person
- Themes
- ActionScience fictionComedy
- Engine
- Source
- Country
- United StatesUnited Kingdom
- Age ratings
- ESRB MCERO ZUSK 18GRAC 19+CLASS_IND 18ACB MA 15+PEGI 16
- Time to beat
- 40hcompletionist
About
The Orange Box is a video game compilation containing five games developed and published by Valve. Two of the games included—Half-Life 2 and its first stand-alone expansion, Episode One—had previously been released in 2004 and 2006 as separate products. Three new games were also included in the compilation: the second stand-alone expansion, Half-Life 2: Episode Two; the puzzle game Portal; and Team Fortress 2, the sequel to Team Fortress Classic. Valve also released a soundtrack containing music from the games within the compilation. A separate product entitled The Black Box was planned, which would have included only the new games, but was later canceled.
The Orange Box was released for Windows and the Xbox 360 in October 2007, while the PlayStation 3 version, developed by EA UK, was released in December 2007. The Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions were published by Electronic Arts. A digital Orange Box pack, containing the five games, was released in May 2010 for Mac OS X following the release of Steam for the platform, while a similar version for Linux followed after the Steam's clients release for Linux in early 2013.
›Story
This compilation gathers several of Valve's acclaimed adventures into one collection. At its heart is the saga of scientist Gordon Freeman, who awakens in the oppressive, dystopian City 17, a human society crushed beneath the rule of the alien Combine. Armed with little more than his wits and a crowbar, Freeman becomes an unlikely symbol of resistance, joined by allies such as Alyx Vance and the enigmatic Vortigaunts as their struggle against the Combine carries them from the crumbling city into the surrounding wilderness. The collection also includes a very different tale, in which a lone test subject awakens inside a sterile research facility and must navigate a series of deadly experiments under the watchful eye of a coldly sardonic artificial intelligence known as GLaDOS. Together these stories span desperate rebellion and eerie isolation, offering a sweeping and darkly imaginative journey through Valve's interconnected worlds.
Media
The articlegameplay, story, development, reception
Development
Valve planned on releasing an additional compilation for Windows entitled The Black Box, which would have contained only the three new games released as a part of the Orange Box—Half-Life 2: Episode Two, Portal, and Team Fortress 2. The Black Box was later cancelled for retail and only made available through Steam exclusively to owners of certain ATI graphics cards, who received a voucher for a free copy of The Black Box.
During development, the simultaneous release of two game compilation packages with different content combinations was touted by Valve as a new direction for the game industry. Gabe Newell, co-founder of Valve, said, "The Black Box and The Orange Box represent a new approach to publishing multiple products on multiple platforms." After first discontinuing The Black Box, however, Valve released all the new material for individual download via Steam.
Reception
The Orange Box was met with universal acclaim from reviewers. The averaging website GameRankings cites both the Xbox 360 version and the PC version as the highest-rated game of their respective platforms. AllGame editor Mark Hoogland called The Orange Box "the gold standard for bundled (video) games". IGN described The Orange Box as "the best deal in video game history," and awarded both the Windows and Xbox 360 versions with an Editors' Choice Award.
All three versions won GameSpot's Editors' Choice Award. Approximately 3 million copies of The Orange Box were sold by the end of November 2008.
Awards
Releases by platformdates and regions as published
Editions and related releases
- Includes
- Half-Life 2Half-Life 2: Episode OnePortal Companion CollectionTeam Fortress 2Half-Life 2: Episode Two
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Collections7 collections
Platform libraries
- Xbox 360 games (M–Z)
- Xbox 360 System Link games
- Backward-compatible games for Xbox One and Series X/SList of compatible titles from Xbox 360
- Xbox One X enhanced gamesList of enhanced titles
- PlayStation 3 games (J–P)
Genres
Description adapted from its source, CC BY-SA 4.0.