10 Video Game Glitches That Turned Into Features
5. The Spy - Team Fortress 2
The mercenaries of Team Fortress are some of the most psychotically charming characters in Valve's repertoire. The game knows how to utilize each of their unique personalities well by making all of them possess different abilities, which help them find their own special role on the battlefield.
This said, one of the mercenaries was not originally planned to be in the game, and was instead a result of a glitch which inspired Valve's developers to add a new type of class to the roster. That mercenary was the Spy.
According to developer Robin Walker, the idea for the class came from a glitch that occurred in a Quake mod, which served as the progenitor of Team Fortress overall. The glitch caused the enemy players to look as though they were part of the player's team, allowing them to stealthily kill them when they least expected.
The glitch gave the developers the idea that having this kind of mole within your ranks could make for an interesting dynamic in their game. They soon started working on creating a spy character to add to Team Fortress, and the legendary, cigar-smoking rogue was born.