Garry's Mod
A physics sandbox with no set objectives.
Garry's Mod, often shortened to GMod, is a sandbox game that came out in 2006. It was made by Facepunch Studios and published by Valve. In its main mode, there are no goals—players get a world where they can freely move and change objects. Other popular modes, like Trouble in Terrorist Town and Prop Hunt, were built by different developers as mods and need to be added separately, often through the Steam Workshop. By September 2021, the game had sold over 20 million copies. A follow-up called S&box, meant as a spiritual successor, launched in 2026. The core gameplay of Garry's Mod is physics-based and lacks any set objectives. Players can bring in non-player characters, ragdolls, and props, then interact with them in various ways. The physics gun lets users pick up, rotate, and freeze ragdolls and props, and even move individual limbs. The tool gun is a multipurpose device for tasks like welding props together, constraining them, or changing a ragdoll's facial expressions. The game supports user-created content through scripts written in Lua. Notable addons include Spacebuild, Wiremod, Elevator: Source, DarkRP, Prop Hunt, and Trouble in Terrorist Town. Some servers, called Fretta servers, switch between custom game modes every fifteen minutes. Version 12 added a "Toybox" section for browsing and installing mods, but this was replaced by Steam Workshop support in version 13. In late 2009, Facepunch held the Fretta Contest, a competition for people to create game modes using the Fretta framework. The winner would be added to the base game. Trouble in Terrorist Town (TTT) won and was included in July 2010, along with another mode called 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 only know each other and look like Innocents to others. Traitors try to eliminate everyone else, while Innocents and Detectives must work together to find and stop the Traitors. Detectives get special gear, like DNA scanners that can track a dead player's killer. Prop Hunt was created by Andrew "AMT" Theis and became popular through Garry's Mod. In this mode, one team hides as props on the map while the other team hunts them.
Quick Facts
- Title
- Garry's Mod
- Developer
- Facepunch Studios
- Publisher
- Valve
- Engine
- Source
- Platforms
- Windows · Mac OS X · Linux
- Released
- Windows · 29 November 2006 · Mac OS X · 23 September 2010 · Linux · 5 June 2013
- Genre
- Sandbox
- Modes
- Single-player, multiplayer
- Designer
- Garry Newman
Facts from the source article.
Lore & Background
Garry's Mod was created by programmer Garry Newman as a mod for Valve's Source game engine and released in December 2004. Newman started developing games under Facepunch Studios after dropping out of college, working as a PHP programmer for a dating website. He was later fired when he launched his own dating website. While developing his first game, Facewound, Garry's Mod became a side-project; he soon found more enjoyment in developing it, so development on Facewound was mostly halted. The first iteration, version 1, was released on 24 December 2004. Initial feedback was polarised, with some players criticising the mod for its similarity to 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. Valve and Facepunch later struck a publishing agreement: Valve would release Garry's Mod on Steam at US$10, with profits split equally. The standalone game was released on 29 November 2006. Newman later cited the name as a mistake, stating he should have called it 'Sandbox' instead. A port for Mac OS X was released on 23 September 2010, and an experimental Linux client was introduced on 5 June 2013.
Reader's Guide
Garry's Mod is notable for its open-ended physics sandbox gameplay, where players can spawn non-player characters, ragdolls, and props, and interact with them using the physics gun and tool gun. The game's modding community has been central to its longevity, with user-created addons developed in Lua, including Spacebuild, Wiremod, Elevator: Source, DarkRP, Prop Hunt, and Trouble in Terrorist Town. The Fretta Contest in late 2009 led to the addition of Trouble in Terrorist Town to the base game in July 2010. Prop Hunt, created by Andrew 'AMT' Theis, became popular through Garry's Mod and was later included in games like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Remastered, Call of Duty: Black Ops III, Fortnite Battle Royale, and Genshin Impact. GMod Tower, a social server network opened in July 2009 by PixelTail Games, reached two million views within hours and later expanded into the standalone game Tower Unite. Garry's Mod has also been used for machinima, such as Half-Life: Full Life Consequences. The game faced incidents including the Glue Library addon prank in June 2022, a ban on Nazi glorification in April 2023, and copyright takedown notices from Nintendo in April 2024 and from the Skibidi Toilet creator in July 2024. In 2025, an update added popularly-used assets from Counter-Strike: Source and episodic content from Half-Life 2.
Did You Know?
- Garry's Mod was originally released as a mod for the Source game engine in December 2004 before becoming a standalone game in November 2006.
- The game has sold more than 20 million copies as of September 2021.
- Trouble in Terrorist Town was added to the base game after winning the Fretta Contest in 2009.
- In April 2023, Facepunch banned the glorification of Nazism following a Twitter poll with close to 50,000 respondents.
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