Package: The Orange Box
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), see The Orange Box (Console).
Electronic Arts (retail)
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The Orange Box is a bundle that includes five titles from Valve: Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2: Episode One, Half-Life 2: Episode Two, Team Fortress 2 and Portal.
Half-Life 2: Episode Two is the sequel to Half-Life 2: Episode One, taking place in White Forest, after the destruction of the Citadel and Gordon Freeman leaving the City 17. Team Fortress 2 is 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. Aside from that, all 3 new titles ships with the then-new 
Source 2007 engine branch (formerly called The Orange Box engine branch), featuring multi-core support, graphical improvements and much more.
Formerly, Peggle Extreme (PC only), a third-party Orange Box-themed game and demo version of Peggle Deluxe by PopCap Games, was also included in this pack, until 2009, when it was made available for free and standalone from this pack.
List of games in this package
- Half-Life 2
Half-Life 2: Episode One
- (PC) Unlisted, moved to Half-Life 2 since 20th Anniversary Update.
Half-Life 2: Episode Two
- (PC) Unlisted, moved to Half-Life 2 since 20th Anniversary Update.
Portal- Team Fortress 2
- (PC) Free-to-play title. Purchasing The Orange Box will upgrade your TF2 account to Premium.
Exclusive to PC
If you brought The Orange Box on PC, you will also have access to the following games:
Half-Life 2: Lost Coast (Unlisted, moved to Half-Life 2 since 20th Anniversary Update)
Half-Life 2: Deathmatch (Unlisted, but once Half-Life 2 is purchased, user can play HL2: Deathmatch)
Half-Life Deathmatch: Source
History
Release
The Orange Box was released for PC, Xbox 360 in October 10, 2007. The PlayStation 3 version was developed by 
Electronic Arts (EA), and came out much later in December 2007 due to Valve having difficulties developing and porting titles to the console at the time, like many other games developers. As Sony kept improving documentation of the PS3 hardware and improving SDKs for the consoles, Valve later ported Portal 2 to the PlayStation 3, without any issues whatsoever.
At release, all titles on this package runs on Source 2007 on consoles, while on PC, only 3 new titles (Episode Two, Team Fortress 2 and Portal) on this package runs on Source 2007. Half-Life 2 and Episode One on PC both continued to run on Source 2004 and 2006 respectively.
More information about the console version can be seen at The Orange Box (Console) page.
Post-release updates
The console version of Team Fortress 2 received no content updates and only minor updates (usually bug fixes and gameplay changes) until March 19, 2008 (for PlayStation 3, only one patch)[1] and July 21, 2009 (for Xbox 360, with four patches),[2] the latter due to restrictions imposed on game developers to pay a fee of $40,000 by Microsoft during the Xbox 360's lifespan until 2013. Additionally, the console version still runs on Source 2007.
In 2009 and 2010, PC versions of Half-Life 2 and Half-Life 2: Episode One (both at the time running on Source 2004 and Source 2006), as well as 3 new games from this pack (Source 2007), now upgraded to Source 2009. That same year, Peggle Extreme have been made available completely standalone from this package. macOS support was added later in 2010, at the same time when Half-Life 2 and Episode One ported to Source 2009 engine.
In June 23, 2011, Team Fortress 2 is available separately for free, only on PC. Nonetheless, TF2 will not show up in user's library when uninstalled unless the user has purchased the game prior to going F2P or has purchased The Orange Box. If player purchase The Orange Box on Steam (or activate a retail copy of The Orange Box), regardless if you brought it before or after the June 23, 2011 free-to-play update, the player will get 
Proof of Purchase helmet,[3] and the user account will be upgraded to Premium.[4]
And between March to May 2013, during and after SteamPipe update, buying this package on PC will give user access to Half-Life 2: Lost Coast, Half-Life 2: Deathmatch, and Half-Life Deathmatch: Source, despite not being mentioned on the bundle page. On the same year, the engine for all 5 games has been updated again to Source 2013. Linux support was also added at the same time.
In July 29, 2022, Valve announced that starting September 1, 2022, all games and bundles must not have game reviews on the banner and/or cover itself.[5] However despite that, The Orange Box's banner was left unchanged and unnoticed for nearly 2 years until March 15, 2024, when the game goes on sale, a Valve employee finally removed the award sticker on the bundle's banner.[6] Also since 2022, Team Fortress 2's version of Source 2013 Multiplayer, named 
Team Fortress 2 branch which add new features and changes that makes it partially incompatible with some Source 2013 MP tools, the Team Fortress 2 branch later eventually succeeded Source 2013 Multiplayer for first-party games.
In November 16, 2024, with the release of Half-Life 2 20th anniversary update, both episodes and Lost Coast were moved to Half-Life 2, while Deathmatch are no longer available separately. Half-Life 2 (and it's episodes) also received some graphical improvements, such as radial fog, bicubic lightmaps and new details added on 3D Skybox like brush/displacement horizon fog on Water Hazard, and all Coast chapters (Highway 17 and Sandtraps), including 3D skybox representation of the next map (d2_coast_11) shown on d2_coast_10. All of these changes are exclusive to PC version of the game. Regardless, if you brought Half-Life 2 or The Orange Box, users will have access to both episodes, Lost Coast and Deathmatch. Half-Life 2: Deathmatch was also upgraded to Team Fortress 2 branch.
In May 20, 2025, without being mentioned on changelog, Portal was upgraded to latest version of Source 2013 Singleplayer based on Half-Life 2 20th Anniversary Update version, with all of the new engine features available in Portal. This update was previously and initially rolled out on February 13, 2025 which was later pulled quickly due to crashes caused by missing fire particles.
Media
See also
- Orange Box (engine branch) - the Source 2007 engine branch, formerly known as Orange Box engine branch.
External links
- The Orange Box website (Archived)
The Orange Box on Steam
References
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