10 Video Game Bugs That Became Features

4. The Spy - Quake Team Fortress

Team Fortress 2 Spy
Valve

In 1996, a small group of Aussies made Team Fortress, a mod for Quake. Within this mod there was a glitch where a player's name could show up as the wrong colour, making it look like said player was on the opposite team than they actually were.

In this case, the bug was an easy fix and it didn’t indeed get fixed, but that’s not the end of the story.

The devs were inspired by the glitch to create a character class based on deceiving the opposite team into thinking they were a member of it. And thus The Spy was born within an update called QuakeWorld Team Fortress, capable of impersonation and very literal backstabbing. Of course, this class would eventually carry forward into Team Fortress 2 as well.

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Jess has been a journalist and content creator in the games industry for over 15 years and has been WhatCulture's resident Australian import and sorry cop since 2020, upping the quotient of swearing and apologising in WhatCulture Gaming's annual blooper videos considerably. She previously worked at GameSpot for 10 years, most notably hosting GameSpot News in addition to E3 live shows, and PAX panels. She regularly livestreams a variety of games on her 'jessmcdonell' YouTube and Twitch channels and hosts the 'Do It On The Day' podcast. She has won awards for her news and feature work in gaming as well as an accolade for her comedic writing (likely an admin error). She can be found on X at @jessmcdonell and Instagram at @jessicamcdonell sharing her current videogame fixations, industry insights, and videos of her cat, Karma.