Capture The Flag

From MonsterLANWiki

A common gameplay mode called "Capture the Flag" is found in many first-person shooters. CTF is even in some sports games like the Tony Hawk Pro Skater series. Each team has a flag and the players attempt to take the enemy's flag from their base and bring it back to their own flag to score. CTF is most commonly played in multiplayer games.

Possibly the first FPS (and the first computer or video game) to feature CTF was Rise of the Triad, released in 1994. One of the multiplayer modes was called Capture the Triad, and conforms to the objectives stated above for CTF games in first person shooters, with the exception that the items to be captured/defended were triad symbols.

CTF was popularized when it was first introduced as a modification to Quake by the company Threewave. CTF is also a popular mode in the Team Fortress and Team Fortress Classic mods for Quake and Half-Life respectively.

CTF mods are available for multiple first person shooters, including Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, which is a free download using the game engine from the popular Return to Castle Wolfenstein.

Compared to a deathmatch game, CTF scenarios often feature some sort of transportation tool that can be used to travel faster and to reach areas which the player wouldn't normally be able to reach without this extra aid. Such tools might be a grappling hook (aka ninja rope) or a portable teleporter. In Battlefield 1942 CTF the many vehicles available in the game serve this role, though in ETF the vehicles move slower than the players, and are vulnerable objectives in most missions. The usual reason for including such equipment is because it allows players to outmaneuver the flag carrier on his way home, as the flag carrier is often not able to use transportation tools — or only certain vehicles such as in Unreal Tournament 2004 where only players in ground vehicles can hold and thus capture the flag, whereas using air vehicles or the translocater (a personal teleporter/grappling hook) will cause the player to drop the flag. This feature gives the defenders an edge, thus making the game sessions last a bit longer.

There are also CTF variants for more than 2 teams (4 teams most commonly). In that case the scoring system can vary quite greatly.