Garry's Mod

Garry Newman started it as a Half-Life 2 mod, and the first version came out in December 2004. Valve suggested turning the mod into a standalone game, and Newman said no at first. In November 2006 Garry's Mod launched on Steam, with Valve and Facepunch splitting the profits. The mod's name stayed, and Newman later called that a mistake: he should have named it simply Sandbox.

Players made modes of their own. In 2009 Facepunch ran a contest, and the winner was Trouble in Terrorist Town, a take on the party game Mafia. In Prop Hunt one team hides disguised as props while the other hunts them, and modes built on that idea later turned up in Call of Duty and Fortnite.

In September 2024 Guinness World Records named Garry's Mod the best-selling PC-exclusive game ever. Its success helped Facepunch take on Rust. Players rate it 96% positive across 1,100,155 reviews. On our Recommended Score it ranks 416 of 4,736 games.

Enjoyed it? Try People Playground, a sandbox where ragdolls get shot, burned and crushed, and Scrap Mechanic, where you build machines and structures out of parts.