Garry's Mod

The 2006 Source engine sandbox every game on this site descends from, and still $9.99 on Steam twenty years on.

By Usman Shafqat · Updated 2026-10-20

What Garry's Mod is

Garry's Mod started as a mod for Half-Life 2 and became its own game on Steam in 2006. The idea is the same one GoreBox, Melon Sandbox and People Playground later copied: a physics engine, a spawn menu, a physics gun and a tool gun, and no goals. You weld props together into cars and catapults, pose ragdolls, and, mostly, play the game modes the community built on top. Trouble in Terrorist Town, Prop Hunt, DarkRP and Sandbox are still full of players every day. Hosting and joining is on the multiplayer page.

It runs on the Source engine, which is why it needs other Valve games mounted for full content. Owning Counter-Strike: Source and Half-Life 2 fixes the pink-and-black missing textures that new players run into.

Price, and is Garry's Mod free?

It costs $9.99 on Steam and has for years. It drops to $4.99 in almost every Steam sale. It is not free, and the "garry's mod free" or "gmod unblocked" pages are either cracked copies that can't join servers (Valve Anti-Cheat blocks them) or browser games that use the name. The PC page covers the download and what the game needs.

Garry's Mod is only sold through Steam. There is no Android, iOS or console version.

Mods and addons

Garry's Mod calls its mods addons, and they all come from the Steam Workshop, which has more content for GMod than for almost any other game. Installing, the essential ones and fixing conflicts are on the addons page. Subscribe on the Workshop page or in the in-game addon browser, and it's active next launch. The big categories:

• Weapons (SWEPs) and entities (SENTs).
• Player models and ragdolls, which is where most of the copyrighted-character content lives.
• Maps, from recreations of real places to purpose-built game mode arenas.
• Tools for the tool gun, like Wiremod, which adds circuits and logic to contraptions.
• Game modes: TTT, Prop Hunt, Murder, DarkRP and hundreds more.

Addon conflicts are the main cause of crashes. If the game breaks after subscribing to something, disable addons in halves until you find it.

s&box: the successor

Facepunch released s&box (pronounced sandbox) on Steam on 28 April 2026 at $20 after five years in a free developer preview. It runs on Source 2, scripts in C#, and its engine is open source under the MIT licence. It is a platform for making and playing games rather than a straight sequel: the sandbox game mode is one option among many, and the tools are aimed at people who want to build. Garry's Mod is not going anywhere and is still the cheaper, simpler place to play the classic modes.

There is no "Garry's Mod 2". When people search that, they mean s&box.

No mobile, no console

Garry's Mod has never been on Android, iOS, PlayStation, Xbox or Switch, and the Source engine dependencies make it unlikely ever to be. The Android page goes through what the "gmod apk" listings install and which mobile games are the closest thing.

Common questions

Garry's Mod on PC

It only runs on PC. The download, the specs, the texture fix, and the commands worth knowing.

Garry's Mod is a PC game in the fullest sense: Windows, Mac and Linux, mouse and keyboard, and a console you'll use more than in any other game. It is sold through Steam only, for $9.99, and it has no other legitimate download. The GMod hub covers addons, game modes and s&box; the Android page covers the clone apps.

Download Garry's Mod

Keys from grey-market resellers are usually fine for GMod since it has no regional lock, but they aren't cheaper than a Steam sale, so there's little point.

System requirements

The engine is from 2004 and runs on anything, but it's single-threaded, so a high clock speed matters more than core count. Large servers with hundreds of addons are the only thing that make it heavy.

Missing textures and errors

Pink and black checkerboards and floating ERROR signs mean the map or addon is using content from a Source game you don't own. Fix:

1. Buy Counter-Strike: Source ($9.99). Most maps need it.
2. Own Half-Life 2 (now free on Steam). Some content also needs Episode 1 and 2.
3. In GMod's main menu, click the controller icon bottom right and tick the games to mount.

Free alternatives exist as Workshop addons that bundle the textures, but they are of questionable legality and get removed periodically.

Console commands

Enable the console in Settings → Keyboard → Advanced → Enable developer console, then press the tilde key.

Mac and Linux

Both have native builds and they work, with caveats. On Apple Silicon the Mac version is 64-bit but some addons with binary modules are Windows-only. Linux is solid and Steam Deck rates it Playable; the console and addon menus want a keyboard.

Garry's Mod addons and the Workshop

Twenty years of mods, all on one Workshop. How to install them, which ones to start with, and what to do when one breaks the game.

Garry's Mod addons are what the game is. The base install is a physics gun, a tool gun and a spawn menu; everything else, from the guns to the game modes to the maps, comes from the Steam Workshop, which has more content for GMod than for almost any other game. The Workshop is also where new players hit their first problems: pink textures, missing sounds, a game that crashes on load. This section covers installing, the addons worth starting with, and fixing conflicts.

Installing addons from the Steam Workshop

1. Open the GMod Workshop on Steam (Community → Workshop, or the Workshop button on the game's library page), or use the addon browser inside the game's main menu.
2. Click Subscribe. Collections subscribe to a whole set; most servers publish one so you can grab everything they run in one click.
3. Launch the game. Subscribed addons download at the main menu; the progress shows bottom right.
4. Main menu → Addons to see them, enable, disable or unsubscribe.

Addons live in steamapps/common/GarrysMod/garrysmod/addons as .gma files. Legacy addons (folders with an addon.json) go in the same place; a few old mods still ship that way.

Addons most players end up with

Sort the Workshop by "Most Subscribed of All Time" for the rest of the top hundred. Read the descriptions; half of them list a required base addon.

When an addon breaks the game

Symptoms: crash on the main menu, crash when a map loads, missing menus, or a tool gun that does nothing. Fix in this order:

1. Check the console (enable it under Settings → Keyboard → Advanced, open with the tilde key). Lua errors name the addon in the file path.
2. Disable in halves. Main menu → Addons → disable half, restart, test. Keep halving the working set until you have the one that breaks.
3. Look for a missing base. A weapon pack without its weapon base, an NPC without VJ Base, or a map without CS:S content gives errors that look like the addon's fault.
4. Clean the cache. Delete the contents of garrysmod/cache and garrysmod/downloads, then verify game files in Steam.
5. Unsubscribe from anything last updated years ago that you don't use. Old addons override newer ones with the same file names.

Server addons versus your addons

Joining a server downloads that server's addons into your cache, which is why joining a big DarkRP server takes ten minutes the first time. Those downloads don't show in your Addons menu and don't run in singleplayer. If a server's collection is public, subscribing to it in advance makes joining instant.

Making addons

Addons are Lua scripts plus models, materials and sounds, packed into a .gma with the gmad tool that ships in the game's bin folder and uploaded with gmpublish or the in-game publisher. The Garry's Mod wiki (wiki.facepunch.com/gmod) documents every function; it's the most complete modding reference in this genre. A basic SWEP (weapon) or entity is an evening's work. Playing with friends on your own addons is on the multiplayer page.

Garry's Mod multiplayer

Three ways to play with people: host from the menu, join a public server, or run a dedicated server. Here's how each works.

Garry's Mod multiplayer has been the point of the game since 2006, and it's still the easiest sandbox to play with friends because you can host from the main menu with no setup. There are three routes: a listen server from your own game, public servers through the browser, and a dedicated server you run yourself. Which one you want depends on how many people and how long.

Host from the main menu (friends, up to a handful)

1. Main menu → Start New Game.
2. Pick a map and, bottom right, the game mode.
3. Set Max Players to more than 1. Set the server name and, if you want it private, a password in the same panel.
4. Start. Your friends join from their Steam friends list: right-click your name → Join Game. Or they open the console and type connect followed by your IP.

This is a listen server: it runs inside your game, so if you quit, it ends. It's fine for two to eight players. Beyond that, or for anything that needs to stay up, use a dedicated server. Router port forwarding (UDP 27015) is needed unless everyone joins through Steam, which tunnels it for you.

Join a public server

Main menu → Join Multiplayer → pick a game mode tab (Sandbox, TTT, DarkRP, Prop Hunt) → the browser lists servers with player counts and ping. Joining downloads the server's addons; big RP servers take a while the first time. Subscribe to the server's Workshop collection first if it's linked and the wait disappears. The addons page explains server versus local addons.

Run a dedicated server

For a group that plays regularly, a server that stays up without anyone's game running.

1. Install SteamCMD.
2. In it: login anonymous, then app_update 4020 validate. That's the GMod dedicated server.
3. Launch with srcds -game garrysmod +maxplayers 16 +map gm_construct +gamemode sandbox, adding +host_workshop_collection <id> for addons.
4. Forward UDP 27015 on your router, or rent a host; most GMod hosting starts at a few dollars a month and handles all of this in a panel.
5. Give friends the IP; they join with connect ip:27015.

Facepunch's wiki (wiki.facepunch.com/gmod/Dedicated_Server) has the full reference, including mounting Counter-Strike: Source content on the server so maps don't show missing textures for everyone.

Common join errors

Cross-platform and mobile

GMod is Windows, Mac and Linux, and all three play together. There's no console or mobile version, so no cross-play beyond that; the Android page covers what the phone apps are. Steam Link streams your PC game to a phone or TV if you want to play from the sofa.