Valve has put out a blog post (opens in new tab) revealing that Team Fortress 2 will be getting a “major update” this summer, which is to say that it won’t just be getting the usual injection of new cosmetic items, but a whole smorgasbord of “items, maps, taunts, unusual effects, war paints and who knows what else?”
The only catch is that it will all have to be provided by the community: Valve has put out a call for Steam Workshop submissions to be made by May 1 for this “as-yet unnamed, un-themed, but still very exciting summer-situated (but not summer-themed) (unless you want to develop summer-themed stuff) update.”
To put things in perspective, Team Fortress 2’s last major update came just last October with “Scream Fortress 14.” If that doesn’t sound too bad, I would like to note that TF2’s last non-Scream Fortress major update was all the way back in 2017 with Jungle Inferno. This additionally seems to have been the last time TF2 received new content made in-house by Valve with the control point map, Mercenary Park. Otherwise, the “major” updates have all been Steam Workshop-driven.
With the increased love and attention TF2 has gotten in the past year, particularly with the fan campaign (opens in new tab) to get more developer-side support of the game from Valve, it’s nice to see that community rewarded with an extra update. Even if this content is all sourced from the community, these Workshop creations are being celebrated and having their profiles raised by Valve.
This news also follows Valve effectively giving the community the keys to the kingdom (opens in new tab), granting modders a greater deal of latitude in altering the game through VScript. It’ll be exciting to see how the modding community responds to Valve’s call for submissions, as well as if the developer will be able to craft a cohesive theme for the event from all these disparate projects.
