The Orange Box recently marked its 15-year anniversary on October 9, with this milestone predictably leading to an uptake in discourse and nostalgia surrounding the collection of titles. Given how so many of these involved titles are regarded so highly and are still so deeply relevant to this day, many consider The Orange Box to be one of the best deals in the entire history of gaming.
In all, The Orange Box consists of five of Valve's most popular titles, including Half-Life 2 and its two episodic sequels, Portal, and Team Fortress 2. When considering the sheer impact that these titles have had and the continued player base of The Orange Box to this day, it becomes even clearer why the collection is so well-known for its value for money and prestige.
The Orange Box: Half-Life 2, Episode One, and Episode Two
The Half-Life series of games are arguably some of the single most influential first-person shooter titles of all time. Making its debut all the way back in 1998 with the original Half-Life, the series has made a point of rewriting what can be expected from a first-person single-player experience with each subsequent mainline release.
Half-Life 2 released in 2004, with its scale, graphical quality, and the capabilities of its brand-new Source Engine massively impressing the gaming world. Continuing the story of Gordon Freeman, Half-Life 2 set a near unmatchable precedent for the time in which it was created, boasting a lengthy and layered story that built upon and far exceeded the quality of its predecessor.
Giving further credence to the unheard-of ambition and scale behind the title, Half-Life 2: Episode One released in 2006. Providing a smaller-scale but just as narratively important expansion to Half-Life 2's campaign, fans were once again delighted with the physics-based puzzles and intense close-quarters combat that the series is now known for. The final installment to the franchise came with Half-Life 2: Episode Two in 2007, leaving fans with one of the most notorious cliffhangers in gaming history.
The Orange Box released in 2007 in tandem with Episode Two, and additionally included Half-Life 2 and Episode One. The fact that the collection includes this trilogy of titles alone is an impressive and commendable aspect of The Orange Box, but the fact that the collection released so close to the games' original releases only further serves to reinforce the sheer value of the collection at the time it released.
The Orange Box: Portal
The first Portal game is another of Valve's most well-respected releases, being widely considered as one of the best first-person puzzle platformers that has ever been made. Portal is set in the same universe as the Half-Life titles, telling the tale of a test subject within the Aperture Science research facility. With the facility ominously absent of any other human life, the player is at the whim of a decaying super-intelligent computer system known as GLaDOS, who guides the player through increasingly complex and hazardous test chambers.
Also utilizing the same aforementioned Source Engine that has become synonymous with Valve titles, the portal-based physics to the core gameplay of Portal saw the game become a massive hit within the puzzle community. Portal also originally released in October 2007 alongside The Orange Box, meaning it was a brand-new game alongside Episode Two when the collection first came out.
The success of the first Portal is further evidenced in the release of its high-profile and successful sequel Portal 2 in 2011. Greatly expanding upon the scale and narrative of the first game while introducing well-received co-operative gameplay to the Portal franchise, the influence and early success of the original Portal is deeply important, as its inclusion in The Orange Box.
The Orange Box: Team Fortress 2
Team Fortress 2 is another massively important title in the history of Valve as a developer. Being a class-based arena shooter with a highly-stylized aesthetic, TF2 can be said to be one of the company's most ambitious and successful titles to date.
Amazingly, Team Fortress 2 also originally launched in October 2007, meaning three out of the five titles included in The Orange Box were completely new upon the collection's launch. TF2 would go on to become one of the longest-running and successful PC shooters of all time, going free-to-play on the platform in 2011. With Team Fortress 2 still commanding a huge PC player base to this day despite a lack of recent updates from Valve and a potentially game-ruining bot problem, the addictive and endless fun that TF2 provides has seen the game persevere.
The Orange Box contains the only console port for TF2, which still has an active player base to this day across Xbox and PlayStation, despite being 15-years old and receiving no major updates since its original launch. Given the influence that TF2 has been said to have on the class-based shooter genre, more specifically within titles such as Overwatch, it is perhaps less surprising that people still play such an outdated port of the successful release.
With hours of content concerning some of the most iconic and influential titles that gaming has seen in more recent years, it is no surprise that The Orange Box is as well regarded as it is. When further considering how a majority of the content included in the collection was brand-new at the time of its original launch, the value and acclaim behind the collection truly speaks for itself.
The Orange Box is available for PC, PS3, Xbox 360, and Xbox One.