Garry's Mod
A physics sandbox game with no set objectives.
Garry's Mod, often shortened to GMod, is a sandbox game released in 2006. It was made by Facepunch Studios and published by Valve. The main game mode has no goals; players are free to move objects around in a virtual world. Other popular modes, like Trouble in Terrorist Town and Prop Hunt, were made by other people as mods and must be installed separately, often through the Steam Workshop.
The game started as a mod for Valve’s Source engine, created by Garry Newman in December 2004. It later became a standalone product, published by Valve in November 2006. Versions for Mac OS X and Linux came out in September 2010 and June 2013. By September 2021, Garry’s Mod had sold over 20 million copies. A spiritual successor, S&box, was released in 2026.
**Gameplay** In its basic mode, Garry’s Mod is a physics sandbox with no set objectives. Players can spawn non-player characters, ragdolls, and props, and interact with them in various ways. The “physics gun” lets players pick up, rotate, and freeze ragdolls and props, including individual limbs. The “tool gun” is a multi-purpose device used for welding props together, constraining them, or changing ragdoll facial expressions.
**User-created content** The game allows modification through scripts written in the Lua programming language. Notable addons include Spacebuild, Wiremod, Elevator: Source, DarkRP, Prop Hunt, and Trouble in Terrorist Town. Some servers, called Fretta servers, rotate between custom game modes every fifteen minutes. Version 12 introduced the “Toybox” section for browsing and installing user-made mods, which was replaced by Steam Workshop support in version 13.
**Fretta Contest and Trouble in Terrorist Town** In late 2009, Facepunch held the “Fretta Contest,” a competition to develop game modes using the Fretta framework. The winning mode would be added to the base game. The winner was Trouble in Terrorist Town (TTT), added in July 2010 alongside Dogfight: Arcade Assault. TTT splits players into three groups: Traitors, Detectives, and Innocents, similar to the party game Mafia. Detectives are known to everyone, while Traitors appear as Innocents to non-Traitors. Traitors try to eliminate all other players, while Innocents and Detectives cooperate to find and stop the Traitors. Detectives have special gear, like DNA scanners that trace a dead player’s killer.
**Prop Hunt** The Prop Hunt mode was
- developer
- Facepunch Studios
- publisher
- Valve
- initial_release
- December 2004 (mod), November 2006 (standalone)
- platforms
- Windows, Mac OS X, Linux
- copies_sold
- More than 20 million (as of September 2021)
- spiritual_successor
- S&box (released 2026)
Lore & Background
Garry's Mod was created by programmer Garry Newman as a mod for Valve's Source game engine, released in December 2004. Newman started developing games under Facepunch Studios after dropping out of college, working from his parents' house. He initially developed the mod as a side project while working as a PHP programmer for a dating website. The first iteration, version 1, was released on 24 December 2004. Initial feedback was polarized, with some players criticizing its similarity to an existing mod, JBMod, but increasing positive reception led Newman to continue development. Through 2004 and 2005, he released several updated versions, culminating in version 9.0.4 on 27 November 2005. Valve contacted Newman to suggest a commercial standalone release through Steam, which he initially rejected, but later struck a publishing agreement with equal profit sharing. The standalone game was released on 29 November 2006. Ports for Mac OS X and Linux followed in September 2010 and June 2013, respectively.
Reader's Guide
Garry's Mod is significant as a foundational sandbox game that enabled extensive user-created content through Lua scripting. Notable mods include Spacebuild, Wiremod, Elevator: Source, DarkRP, Prop Hunt, and Trouble in Terrorist Town. The Fretta Contest in late 2009 led to Trouble in Terrorist Town being added to the base game in July 2010. Prop Hunt, created by Andrew 'AMT' Theis, was popularized through Garry's Mod and later inspired game modes in titles like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Remastered, Call of Duty: Black Ops III, Fortnite Battle Royale, and Genshin Impact. The game also spawned GMod Tower, a social server network that later expanded into the standalone game Tower Unite. Garry's Mod has been used for machinima, notably Half-Life: Full Life Consequences. The game faced incidents including the Glue Library addon prank in June 2022, prohibitions on Nazi glorification in April 2023, and copyright takedowns from Nintendo in April 2024 and from the Skibidi Toilet creator in July 2024. As of September 2021, it has sold more than 20 million copies.
Did You Know?
- Garry's Mod was originally released as a free mod for Half-Life 2 on 24 December 2004.
- The game mode Trouble in Terrorist Town won the Fretta Contest in late 2009 and was added to the base game in July 2010.
- In June 2022, the Glue Library addon was altered to display shock images and play loud sounds, with source files containing curses directed at Garry Newman and Gabe Newell.
- A spiritual successor, S&box, was released in 2026.
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