Valve was going to ship The Orange Box in a white box before staff ‘destroyed’ the idea, and yes they saw you all doubting Portal before release: ‘You guys are gonna eat those words’

On October 10 2007 Valve released what is perhaps the greatest deal in gaming history: The Orange Box, a compendium of Half-Life 2 with both episodes, the long-awaited Team Fortress 2, and the unknown quantity Portal. OK, Half-Life 2 was a few years old by this point (Episode 2 was new), but every single game in that package is an all-timer, and you got the lot for the price of one retail game.

And at the time, retail still mattered to Valve: Steam was a few years old, but boxed sales were the focus for The Orange Box at launch. Which naturally made the box itself a very important part of the whole deal and… well, this is the one aspect on which The Orange Box fell flat. The final product was a weird tripartite presentation of all three games, which have distinct aesthetics, and a bunch of text telling you what was in the box.