I had the opportunity to visit Valve Software in Bellevue, Washington the other day for an office tour, followed by a playtest of an upcoming update for Team Fortress 2. There’s not a whole lot of substance to this post, but I wanted to share some of the photos I took while I was there. I cannot share everything, so most of these photos are from the lobby.

James looking awkward in front of the Valve

Here I am looking awkward in front of the Valve... valve.

Marker on a wall stating you are on the 5th floor of the Valve offices

Valve is located in an office block where they own multiple floors.

Portal 2 memorabilia

Merchandise and other memorabilia is scattered around the whole office.

Custom computers underneath a TV screen

Fancy computers!

Custom Valve computer cases

You'd always see builds like this in magazines.

Wall of magazines

Speaking of magazines they have a whole wall of them.

Wall of awards

Awards too.

Golden Crowbar

The elusive golden crowbar

Plaque that states 'Congratulations for Raising the Bar on Action Games. Half-Life - Gold - November, 1998. Sierra Studios'

Given to Valve when Half-Life went gold in November of 1998.

Statue of Atlas from Portal 2

They even had a super sized Atlas statue.

Tank from Left 4 Dead

Unpainted Tank statues from Left 4 Dead

Barnacle from Half-Life hanging from the ceiling

And barnacles hanging from the ceiling

Conclusion

Thank you to Valve for having me and giving me some lovely goodies to take home. It was a great experience, and I hope to be back soon!

Valve

Edit: Now that it’s released, the content I playtested was the Pyromania update (aka the Meet the Pyro update).

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