Team Fortress 2

The modern hero shooter owes a visible debt to nine cartoon mercenaries.

Valve released Team Fortress 2 in 2007 after years of reworking its class-based shooter sequel. The idea came from the earlier Team Fortress games, but TF2 gave each role an instantly readable silhouette, voice and comic personality.

A Heavy could anchor a push with a Medic beside him, while Spies infiltrated the enemy and Engineers reshaped the battlefield with sentry guns. Teamwork depended on understanding what each character could do and how those abilities fit together.

That approach became an important step toward the modern hero shooter and directly influenced Overwatch, whose director Jeff Kaplan later called Team Fortress 2 a huge influence.

TF2 also became a major experiment in long-term online business. Its item economy, community-created content and 2011 move to free-to-play helped Valve develop ideas it later carried into Steam and other games.