You either spent your schooling years in community servers filled with Konata sprays and micspam, or you didn't.

What's left of this game aside from its legacy? Bitter veterans that muddle around and hop from hacker-filled public server to hacker-filled public server. There is nothing but a sardonic feeling amongst its playerbase, myself included. These days, its parts are better than its sum.

All this considered, it deserves no less than a 5★. TF2 changed the landscape permanently, unfortunately for the worse. Yet, what it brought to the table was wholly unique and memorable for millions of people.

​🇮​​🇷​​🇺​​🇲​​🇦​​🇪​ - ​🇹​​🇪​​🇦​​🇲​ ​🇫​​🇴​​🇷​​🇹​​🇷​​🇪​​🇸​​🇸​ 2

​🇦​​🇱​​🇪​​🇷​​🇹​​🇸​ (1️)
​🇾​​🇴​​🇺​ ​🇭​​🇦​​🇻​​🇪​ ​🇳​​🇪​​🇼​ ​🇮​​🇹​​🇪​​🇲​​🇸​!

Recently I’ve become infatuated with the catalogue and timeline of Valve’s works, as someone who has arrived to the PC scene only recently, I’ve picked up their backlog of titles and have come to understand their legacy. Wherever that’s their genre making Half-Life that set forth what an immersive story should be, or the incredible case of Portal, and what I could argue as the definitive puzzle game. Even their more “lesser frontline” games such as Day of Defeat and older Counter Strike’s are fascinating enough where I feel intrigued to explore and delve in more. The success could be attributed to many things, like the Source engine being so perfect for the time as it was, or Valve’s near godlike worship in most online communities. Over the past few weeks however, one of these has stuck out to me as a work I would have never expected to love so much.

ʏᴏᴜʀ ᴄᴀꜱᴜᴀʟ ᴍᴀᴛᴄʜ ɪꜱ ʀᴇᴀᴅʏ
ᴊᴏɪɴɪɴɢ ɪɴ 6...

Where can you really start with Team Fortress 2? A flagship of the Orange Box quickly becoming one of the longest supported games throughout it’s life, before falling into a limbo of uncertainty for it’s prevalent future. As someone new to playing, this was incredibly daunting, but soon enough you get into a rhythm of matches and matches and the outsider feeling isn’t really a problem. To delve into the gameplay, I believe they really nailed it right on the spot. Before the time of Overwatch and Paladins there were nine mercenaries, and wherever that the natural talent of Valve they’re really loveable. I initially thought these were just blank slates and that internet culture hypes these guys out more than they’re meant to be, but god dammit they're extravagant personalities really shine out. Scout is loud, often abrasive, Heavy is a sort of stupid yet secretively intellectual character, and the cartoonishly evilness of Medic’s science, to name only three. The reason why TF2 has stuck out so much over the 1.5ish decade course is that these jerk-offs really are individuals, which brings so much personality into the world.

🇽​​🇽​ꜱʜᴀᴅ0️ᴡᴡ0️1️​🇽​​🇽​ ︻デ═一 ɪʀᴜᴍᴀᴇ
​🇽​​🇽​ꜱʜᴀᴅ0️ᴡᴡ0️1​🇽​​🇽 🎯​ ​🇮​​🇸​ ​🇩​​🇴​​🇲​​🇮​​🇳​​🇦​​🇹​​🇮​​🇳​​🇬​ ​🇮​​🇷​​🇺​​🇲​​🇦​​🇪​

Speaking of individuality, an almost genius idea that was maybe accidentally brought into the game was the customisation of the mercs.The mix-matching of weapons and weighing out the pros and cons gives you your own playstyle and how you play your matches. To name an example, my team was trying to push on Dustbowl, and were struggling to get it out of spawn. I had an idea and used the Eyelander and Chargin’ Targe for Demoman and successfully flanked most of the enemy team. Older players will probably roll my eyes and make a comment about subclasses, but I felt rewarded by the game for trying out something slightly unconventional.

​🇩​​🇪​​🇦​​🇩​ ​🇸​​🇦​​🇱​​🇹​​🇾​​🇸​​🇴​​🇱​​🇩​​🇮​​🇪​​🇷​⦂ 🇫​​🇺​​🇨​​🇰​​🇮​​🇳​​🇬​ ​🇸​​🇹​​🇴​​🇵​ ​🇧​​🇪​​🇮​​🇳​​🇬​ ​🇦​​🇫​​🇰​

“Unconventional” suits this game a lot. The more time I spent in this game the more the rabbit hole of gamemode and maps opened up for me. Mann vs Machine, (if you ignore the prevalent toxicity surrounding the games) is one of my favourite PvE modes that could serve as its own game. The uniqueness of mix-matching the weapons and classes comes into fruition here as they bring forward the teamwork and communication side of TF2, and as long as you get great people it’s a lovely time. It gives a very hard to master approach, but I feel as if I’m learning and improving all the time. All of that is driven by the wondrous prize of an elusive Australium weapon, and although I cannot comment on it as much as I would like to, the market system and trading economy in this game is comprehensive and extensively deep. Community tabs, though a violent cesspool of mediocrity, are majoritively entertaining enough to check out. It’s interesting to see what the community can do with only the engine and game mechanics; you only need to take a quick look at rocket-jumping maps for how committed TF2’s players are willing to push the gameplay core.

(​🇻​​🇴​​🇮​​🇨​​🇪​) ​🇫​​🇷​​🇮​​🇪​​🇳​​🇩​​🇱​​🇾​ ​🇭​​🇪​​🇦​​🇻​​🇾​⦂ ​🇲​​🇪​​🇩​​🇮​​🇨​!
(​🇻​​🇴​​🇮​​🇨​​🇪​) ​🇫​​🇷​​🇮​​🇪​​🇳​​🇩​​🇱​​🇾​ ​🇭​​🇪​​🇦​​🇻​​🇾​⦂ ​🇲​​🇪​​🇩​​🇮​​🇨​!
(​🇻​​🇴​​🇮​​🇨​​🇪​) ​🇫​​🇷​​🇮​​🇪​​🇳​​🇩​​🇱​​🇾​ ​🇭​​🇪​​🇦​​🇻​​🇾​⦂ ​🇲​​🇪​​🇩​​🇮​​🇨​!

Its’ cultural status breaks out of this too, as of its’ 16 year anniversary it has miraculously pulled through the lack of support that Valve has given it. It’s a shame, as issues like hacking and the rise of bots have troubled the community enough. But somehow, the perseverance and determination of TF2’s players has me in awe. The aspect of wanting to keep your playerbase together whilst managing to uptake the parts of the game that made it so interesting in the first place is maybe one of the reasons why I love this game so much. And I feel like I could go more into this game, but I’ve said enough. Maybe as I reach the high hour marks my thoughts and opinions will grow bitter, I’ll sour and become a TF2 vet, depressingly wandering and reminiscing on a game that once was. I’ll have joined a community of edgy teens, toxic tryhards, and AI bots insta-sniping me from across the map. But I’ll also be in a place of belonging, and acceptance in a weird time of the internet where maybe all I need from a game is to have fun.

For a game I only just know, this feels like home.
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​🇰​​🇮​​🇨​​🇰​ ​🇵​​🇱​​🇦​​🇾​​🇪​​🇷​⦂ ​🇮​​🇷​​🇺​​🇲​​🇦​​🇪​? (​🇳​​🇴​ ​🇷​​🇪​​🇦​​🇸​​🇴​​🇳​ ​🇬​​🇮​​🇻​​🇪​​🇳​)

​🇵​​🇷​​🇪​​🇸​​🇸​ ​🇫​1️ ​🇹​​🇴​ ​🇻​​🇴​​🇹​​🇪​ ​🇾​​🇪​​🇸​
​🇵​​🇷​​🇪​​🇸​​🇸​ ​🇫​2️ ​🇹​​🇴​ ​🇻​​🇴​​🇹​​🇪​ ​🇳​​🇴​

✓ 6️ ✖ 0️
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​🇸​​🇦​​🇱​​🇹​​🇾​​🇸​​🇴​​🇱​​🇩​​🇮​​🇪​​🇷​⦂ ​🇫​1️
​🇫​​🇷​​🇮​​🇪​​🇳​​🇩​​🇱​​🇾​ ​🇭​​🇪​​🇦​​🇻​​🇾​⦂ ​🇫​1️
​🇮​​🇷​​🇺​​🇲​​🇦​​🇪​⦂ ​🇼​​🇦​​🇮​​🇹​ ​🇼​​🇭​​🇦​​🇹​ ​🇳​​🇴​
​🇮​​🇷​​🇺​​🇲​​🇦​​🇪​⦂ ​🇮​❜​🇲​ ​🇩​​🇴​​🇳​​🇪​ ​🇷​​🇪​​🇻​​🇮​​🇪​​🇼​​🇮​​🇳​​🇬​

​🇩​​🇮​​🇸​​🇨​​🇴​​🇳​​🇳​​🇪​​🇨​​🇹​​🇪​​🇩​⦂
​🇩​​🇮​​🇸​​🇨​​🇴​​🇳​​🇳​​🇪​​🇨​​🇹​⦂ ​🇨​​🇱​​🇮​​🇪​​🇳​​🇹​ ​🇩​​🇮​​🇸​​🇨​​🇴​​🇳​​🇳​​🇪​​🇨​​🇹​.

Played for a half hour and the store tried to cram a bunch of cosmetic items down my face like its news and I played the most braindead tutorial in a while. I queue into a casual game and its all bots except for like 1 other person, one of the bots is clearly cheating on the enemy team so there's no point. Somebody tries to kick me for scamming but I can't even talk in the chat to defend myself, 'Voice Chat not activated on this account' or something but at least theres no players there to vote it through. As the game continues the bots dwindle away to just me and this one other person who seems especially bad at the game so I get a few kills on them. Round ends, bots refill in the lobby, one of them is also blasting a really loud Cocteau Twins song for some reason. This is what I have to play until I win at least 10 games and then maybe possibly competitive is better.

Look usually I don't write these sort of short off the cuff sarcastic reviews but somebody is going to look through and see I hated TF2 and wonder why, this is why. Why would I put up with any of this shit when TF2 Classic is right there? It's insane I'm sitting here and reading the high praise on this game from people I respect a lot (DoctorQuark, Bojangles, etc.) and just feel totally disconnected from it. I think Valve through pure disinterest basically lobotomized the game and left a husk for at least the new player experience. If anybody wants to play TF2 Classic hmu, if anybody wants to play TF2 get your eyeballs checked cause holy shit depressing doesnt even begin to convey the buzzard picked corpse I just had to experience. Genuinely distressing, but at least TF2 Classic functions as a nice time capsule.

kind of hard to rate, but despite its huge following i feel like this game still isnt appreciated enough. sure its an online shooter but not only is it an innovater of its own genre, but its an excellent piece of art in its own right.

the gameplay has been analyzed up and down by much more eloquent than i, but the art design is iconic, the sound design is phenomenal, and it was written when valve was at the top of their game (meaning it was dry, witty, hilarious, and generally incredible)

and the voice acting. god damn. the voice acting elevates this game to another level. from Grant Goodeve's work as the laid-back Engineer, John Patrick Lowrie as the respectful Australian Sniper, Gary Schwartz for his iconic yells, and of course the late but still great Rick May for his performance as the ever-wonderful Soldier. god bless all these men for their work on an iconic, game-changing work of art that will forever be in the hearts of so many people.

Man, what happened to you?

TF2 was once the GOAT of multiplayer class based FPS(s), I have terrific memories of the game centred around playing frequently with small communities on dedicated community servers.

Since its launch it has had a series of changes of focus which have almost entirely altered how the game plays, how people engage with it, and even what the purpose of playing is.

Been dropping into it over the last couple of days and damn, alot of those changes were not for the better. The move away from community hosted servers means you're almost constantly playing against randos and the population of bots - putting it generously - is not insignificant. What servers do exist, are sparcely populated playing heavily modified game mods or are just for farming items.

The changes to the gameplay through item updates actually added alot of dynamic changes to each class (sometimes making the higher skill focused classes like Scout more approachable), but has ultimately resulted in an item/economy based grinding loop that detracts from the actual gameplay. The changes also gradually began to erode the consistent aesthetic the game strived for.

It's a shame, because even now there is clearly a lot of love for the game in what remains of the community, in its peak for me; this was a 4+ star game. These days, it feels like a cheap abandonware FPS.

Some kind of TF2C would be very welcome.

Witty, inventive, weird, configurable and very deep. The desolate state it's been in for a while now is a damn shame. Like most Source games, the community servers are (or were, now) an infinite abyss of weird subcommunities and incoherent map architecture. Virtually impossible to encapsulate the full extent of my experience with it in any amount of words - it's just too broad. The core of it is, was and always will be the best balance between tight competitive shooting and ludicrous wacky mayhem.

talking about the fans of a piece of media in your sincere criticism is silly, but with TF2 the social aspect is kind of integral to the overall experience. this isn't completely bad, you will get those fun matches where everyone will just decide not to play the game and do some goofy friendly shit or ones where you start beef with an enemy and focus them as Spy while they cry in chat. there's a theatrical potential here no other online shooter like it has ever come close to capturing, TF2 is a game where anything can happen. unfortunately, a lot of what does happen is getting called slurs. if you're playing this as a woman and even exist online you're gonna get vote-kicked, sexually harassed, and called slurs only remembered by cave-dwelling creatures studying forbidden scrolls from the dark ages. those rare, high moments of fun and comradery are hard to come by and nearly extinct if you're not a guy. instead, those highs and lows will be buried in an endless ocean of mic-spamming, meme-consuming, shower-avoiding, discord-grooming goobers who are more familiar with the ins and outs of reddit posting than with friend-having.

none of the playerbase's problems matter to the core gameplay, of course. it doesn't change how i feel about the actual game itself, just sours my mood with it sometimes. its unkempt, diseased community does sadly reflect the game's current state however. TF2 is a good 'ol Source title released 16 years ago, and while its timeless art-style and characters still hit hard as fuck today, its performance issues, market, UI, bugs, and all-around design definitely don't. this game introduced the world to loot boxes, it plays like the immune system of a child with every disease, and its gameplay is riddled with weird mistakes and design decisions but goddamnit, i still love it. no 'hero shooter' cast feels like it has half the variety TF2's mere 9 classes do. each have their own distinct role on a team, are more endearing than the vast majority of all fictional characters, and (sorta) have a surprising amount of depth and customization. each class has subclasses and an arsenal of alternative options that completely transform how you play. but for every battle engineer and market gardener, there is the jank of TF2's melee and hitregistry with the demoknight and huntsman sniper. so much shit in this game is broken to this day, either in the code (Scout's babyface's blaster) or just in design (the Heavy overall.) most of the maps are bad, new players will be confused and lost enough already with the game's default, outdated settings and UI but seeing them play on an uncurated map playlist is just cruel. the variety in its gameplay, the depth it can have, is enough to push past that sometimes.

i dunno. this game's foundation is cracking and it's not what it used to be, but no other game like it has a character as fun and creative as the Spy.

A year or two ago, a Discord group I used to frequent chose this as their game of the month that they got together every Monday to play. Chasing nostalgia, I joined in. My expectations were low as every other time I had tried chasing nostalgia with TF2, it had been a sad shadow of what once was. But this time, despite all expectations, I had great fun, and for a few evenings that year I remembered why I used to love this game and had basically gifted my life to it.

It’s still pretty much dead though. But that’s fine. The main reason it worked back then so well was first of all that it was new and secondly because I had communities. For a while I was even in a clan made up of people who were in it not because they wanted to become good at professional gaming, but because they wanted to enjoy being in this one specific clan, made up of friends and acquaintances from one local server. My best buddy was our medic, I was our roamer soldier, the rest were people from the server, 3 of them friends in real life, and one who played with us often with his brother (who I hanged with a few times in real life). It was the kind of clan that you tell stories about later on and that you probably won’t repeat once it’s done.

After the clan inevitably died in a mixture of real-life barging in and unsuitable replacements, I tried a few other clans, but that part of the game was done for me. There was still so much fun before and after, back when the game was the coolest thing around, when people at Valve were as excited about working on it as we were seeing what crazy new stuff they came up with, back when the hat economy was a funny thing and not the building block of one of the worst things to ever happen to videogames, back when all my friends played it and I with them.

That’s all gone now, but such is life. As one person once told another, we’ll always have Paris.

Tf2 is probably my most played game of all time, and to be honest? I hate it. I used to absolutely adore this game, I've got ten thousand hours and STILL play, partially because of sunk cost fallacy but mostly because the core game is actually really good. The problem lies in the fact that it's so hard to get to that fun part when you're constantly dealing with cheaters, bots, generally obnoxious players and small but surmountable balance issues.

Years of dealing with the frankly horrendous community and the afformentioned balance issues have piled up and have progressively become more noticeable and annoying as time has gone on, and there's no sign of them ever being resolved. Bots go without vac bans for months, and while there has been a noticeable decrease of their prominence, they're still not fully taken care of, and some of the recessions made to stop their disruptiveness have negatively impacted parts of the playerbase; F2Ps no longer being able to talk in casual servers being a big example. I'm yet to see if there are any consequences for being toxic or unecessarily hostile towards other players in a lobby, or, y'know, cheating.

I'm someone who doesn't really like community servers all that much - I'm generally looking for a vanilla experience, and community servers that do offer that are often full or scarce. Queuing up for a casual match is usually actually faster and more convenient, though there are many things I'd give to just get quickplay back and be able to hop into any vanilla server with 0 queue times. Casual is its own can of worms. Not being able to spectate, scramble teams or swap teams mid-match creates a remakably dull experience, for one, but I find myself put into a casual match that, way more often than not, goes something like this;

I queue for around 1-5 minutes. Get put in a match. The match is basically seconds from ending or literally ends as soon as I join. The majority of players leave. The map changes. The server becomes empty. I requeue for another 1-5 minutes in hopes of being put into a match with players. Most of the time, casual matches I'm put into go as low as 4 players per team. Maps feels especially empty when you're playing 6v6 as opposed to 12v12, and it means that a lot of the time, there's very little of that frantic, fun chaos that tf2 is known for.

I shouldn't have to constantly kill bind and cycle to the player I want to spectate every 12-20 seconds just so I can look out for a potential cheater. Matches are often abysmally unbalanced, and with teams not being scrambled after successive wins, you're stuck steamrolling or being steamrolled, and neither circumstances are particularly fun. So your best option is to requeue...several times. All of this being part of a push to make tf2 more competitive. Y'know, the game with random critical hits that were implemented with the sole intention of making the game hectic, breaking stalemates, and above all, making tf2 less of a competitive shooter.

Remember when you could get penalised with a ban that could last several months when Meet your Match initially dropped? Just for leaving a casual match? Yeah. Stop trying to make this game competitive, I cannot stress this enough. I remember when faceit dropped and it was basically just casual, without bots mind you, but even more competitively driven. I'm genuinely on my knees here, please just bring back quickplay, for the love of God. It's not even just valve trying to push a more competitive agenda, but vocal parts of the community too. Casual has driven people to play more seriously and competitively in an innately non-serious, non-competitive shooter. I just want to be able to screw around on turbine, or something, and not have to deal with the etf2l aussie sniper with 80k kills on the enemy team, but I so rarely get that opportunity anymore.

Weapons have gone years basically being objective improvements or downgrades over stock contrary to their intended status as sidegrades, thanks to the lack of updates. Stuff like the Bazaar Bargain, Ubersaw, Iron Bomber (until recently, actually), Tomislav (debateably), Jag, Wrangler (also debateably), Diamondback, Crusader's Crossbow, etc are just straight up being better than stock, while other weapons like the Bison (which was never even that good to begin with, but valve nerfed anyway and STILL didn't fully revert to its former self with the...recent...buff? God, it's been so long, I forget how long ago that even was), the Caber, Baby Face's Blaster, Loch n Load, Ambassador etc are either inversely near useless and/or have been nerfed into the ground. Jungle Inferno made Pyro both worse to play as and against, my main example being changing the airblast's hitbox from a cone to a fucking massive cube that extends behind them??? for some reason???? which makes airblasting projectiles piss easy but inversely makes airblasting players away really janky and with seemingly random effectiveness.

And oh my god, the community. I'm sorry. Tf2 players will be like "ooooh we're such a wholesome community of passionate players who welcome everyone and we're so starved of updates please support us we can't deal with all these bots uwu" and then you join a casual match and there's basically a 40% chance you run into a literal neo nazi parading around, constantly throwing transphobic and racial slurs at every opportunity with swastikas on their objector. There's also an 80% chance of said person being a cheater. I genuinely run into more cheaters than bots these days, it's actually insane. I know the "oooh the game's good but oooh the community the so community's bad" bit is a really shitty argument, but in the case of tf2, a game that is purely multiplayer and reliant on you interacting with the community, I think it's a very valid knock against the game experience.

I started playing not too long after Love and War. I still have fond memories of the time spent on quickplay, slowly getting good at the game, messing around and experimenting with loadouts, eventually becoming obsessed with hats, getting in on the memes and community jokes.

I want that to come back, but it likely never will. There's another childhood game of mine that's devolved over the years that I ought to get to reviewing, come to think of it. Maybe some other day.

Jun 2023 addendum:

Yeah it's still terrible lmao. Cheaters and transphobes are even more commonplace than before. Unfortunate. This community will never change and does not deserve an update. Let it go.

I have a disgusting number of hours in this game and I could go on for about an equivalent amount of time talking about it. I will probably write about it for too long as a result, but if you have a little bit of time, then hopefully by the end of this you'll understand why this is one of my favorite games.

Valve is infamous by this point for being one of the most influential players in the PC gaming market, for better or for worse. The things they do tend to break new ground in one form or another, and the fact that you're statistically likely to be playing the bulk of your PC games through their own digital storefront is a testament to how that can definitely be a mixed bag. When it comes to the games they release, though, I'd say they tend to hit the mark more often than not. Counter-Strike, Left 4 Dead, Half-Life, Portal, Dota 2. No matter who you are, you are probably familiar with at least one of those names. And sitting on its own little cloud up in Olympus: Source, shrieking and flailing its arms around while its brethren quietly try to enjoy their dinner of ambrosia and gold, there is Team Fortress 2.

The game has a very interesting development history that led to the creation of a TF2 that is radically different than how it was initially envisioned. I won't get into it all here, but at the end of that long nine years was a production that ended up taking off in ways that I don't think anybody at Valve possibly could have predicted.

TF2's secret sauce actually has a very simple recipe behind it: It's a masterfully designed class-based FPS hiding beneath a veneer of cartoonish violence and absurdity. With an aesthetic inspired by Norman Rockwell prints and 60's spy films, it immediately stands out when lined up with its contemporaries, and it's accentuated by a zany sense of humor which permeates the whole experience up to and including its gameplay. Valve promoted the game heavily with fun animated "interviews" with the game's nine playable classes, lending each of the nameless mercenaries a fistful of hammy charm. It had a definite allure, and that allure is exactly what roped me in when I first played it back in 2009, and was single-handedly responsible for introducing me to PC gaming proper, making me realize what I had been missing out on living exclusively in Nintendo's world for most of my childhood.

At the heart of TF2's gameplay is the nine classes and their distinctive toolkits that, while sometimes contentious with regards to their efficacy, have well-defined strengths and weaknesses. Each of the classes are simple to understand but relatively difficult to master, and while the game might trick you into thinking that running and shooting and ending the sentence there is the whole of the core TF2 experience, you will quickly realize how much that would undersell what's on offer here. Team Fortress 2 relies heavily on an intersection of the uniqueness of its classes and the underlying mechanics of the Source engine to create an experience that is far more nuanced than it appears. Scouts can quickly accomplish objectives but are also deceptively deadly, capable of removing key players from the field and making a quick escape if they're skilled enough. Soldiers and Demomen can utilize explosive jumping to clear unreal amounts of distance in a short period of time, a technique that is absolutely essential at the highest levels of play. Engineers can blindside enemies with creative or unconventional building placement, Pyros can shut down pushes with clever use of their airblasts, Spies can cause panic amongst enemy teams by carefully choosing when to engage their targets - even the more "straightforward" classes like Sniper and Heavy, whose jobs are ostensibly to simply point and shoot, can use their kit in ways that will reward them and their team for thoughtful play. It takes hours of practice to master the mechanics and develop a strong game-sense. Toss in a variety of maps and objectives, alongside a long list of unique weapons with properties that often go far beyond "fires faster but deals less damage", and the situation on the battlefield is constantly changing. It's chaos, though it is ultimately controlled chaos, and no matter how hectic things get, it's still skill and quick thinking that win the game in the end (usually - but I'll touch on that). But no matter how intense the experience becomes, it's still a blast to play, and even the most inexperienced of players will find a lot to love on their way up the ladder.

So yes, the game itself is great - but that isn't the reason why many of us stay. Hardcore players will always keep a game alive and relevant far past its prime, as demonstrated by the tight-knit communities behind shooters like DOOM and Quake. However, what keeps TF2 in the public eye and keeps new and old players alike from ever truly forgetting it is its charm. There is so much about the Team Fortress experience that you simply don't get in most games these days. The endless quotability of the delightfully deranged mercs. The timeless appeal of a ragdoll cartwheeling sixty feet into the air from a well-placed rocket. The wild screams of an angry Scottish man barreling towards you at Mach 3 being the last thing you hear before he separates your head from your shoulders with a massive claymore. The sight of a large tutu-clad man clubbing your foes to death with a sign adorned with a picture of the anime community's Waifu of the Month. A Scout laughs at a corpse only to be shot down by another Scout, who then laughs, and initiates a conga line of small men laughing at corpses before subsequently being murdered. And that's before the actual conga line starts. Informal ceasefires are commonplace so everybody can take a break from the shooting and just goof off for a few minutes. Players keep a key bound to "kill" for no other reason than because spontaneously falling lifeless to the floor for the most contrived of reasons is never not funny. TF2 is chaotic and hilarious and it never tries to betray that quirkiness by taking itself too seriously. The appeal never fades away no matter how many years pass, and I think that even if TF2 was a mechanically perfect game, it wouldn't be as beloved as it is today if not for that.

But it obviously isn't all peaches and cream. Even for as tight as TF2's gameplay is, it has some definite failings with regards to enforcing team balance, which is as essential here as it is in any competitive multiplayer game. The learning curve and astronomically high skill ceiling can easily alienate newcomers, who will find themselves dramatically outclassed by experienced players who know how to weaponize all of the game's quirks. And naturally, this being an online game, there are plenty of sour grapes who will occasionally make the player-to-player experience a hostile one, though they are blessedly still in the minority. There are some truly baffling design decisions that have plagued the game since day one, with things such as random crits (which, contrary to the name, actually operate on a rich-get-richer principle where you're more likely to crit the more damage you've been dealing) and random bullet spread sometimes making winning an interaction infuriatingly RNG-based. Free-to-players will have some trouble experiencing every aspect of the game without actively engaging in trading, and the greater limitations placed upon them in the last few years due to the recent botting crisis means they will definitely feel pressured to spend some money. And on that note - and definitely TF2's greatest claim to infamy - this is perhaps the progenitor of the "loot box" craze, and while far less predatory than many of the games that took inspiration from it, it's still a system that entices you to spend real-world money for a slim chance at getting a virtual item that will make you look and feel cool. If there's any one sin that TF2 and, by extension, Valve will never be able to totally wash its hands of, it's that one.

Indeed, Valve's treatment of TF2 over its lifetime is probably its biggest failing as a whole, and yet is simultaneously the best demonstration of this game's strength on its own merits. Their initial decision to make the game free-to-play after a short time as a standard retail release was initially met with some criticism, but it ultimately worked in the game's favor by ensuring anybody with even a passing interest in the game could try it free of commitment. Needless to say, a whole lot of people were hooked. For a while, things were great, with big and exciting updates adding new weapons, maps and gamemodes that ensured there was always a reason to crack the game open. However, as time has gone by, Valve has shown less and less interest in supporting the game as anything other than a simple revenue generator, failing to provide meaningful new content for its playerbase while still being more than happy to pump out new cosmetics for them to empty their wallets onto. This, along with the aforementioned bot invasion that made the casual experience nigh-on unplayable for many, lead to fans practically having to beg Valve to show some meaningful support for their beloved game. There was a response, if not much of one, and we're all still waiting for something truly substantial to come as a result - but we are all still here. After sixteen years and many ups and downs, TF2, a game that is fundamentally the same one we were all playing back in 2007, is still going strong, enjoying a healthy player count and celebrated by the community through gargantuan heaps of artwork and animations that still manage to sneak their way into the Internet's cultural zeitgeist. Private servers, mods and a strong competitive scene ensure that the faithful have a place to enjoy themselves no matter how much the "true" TF2 experience stagnates. It's a game that simply won't die, and that's because it's a game that, when all is said and done, is just plain fun. It's goofy, it's addicting, and at its best, it's exhilarating. Team Fortress 2 is and will always be one of my favorite games of all time, and even if I have a harder time recommending it today than I did ten or even five years ago, that isn't the fault of the game itself, but rather of its creators who fail to appreciate what an absolute gem they've made. There never needs to be a Team Fortress 3. What we need is a Team Fortress 2.1 - a promise from Valve that, for as long as people love the game, they will keep giving them reasons to come back to it. But I do feel content knowing that even if Valve has no intention of keeping the game alive, its fans will.

Never in my however many years of playing video games has a game caught my attention like TF2. The memories I've made playing TF2 are truly unrivaled, and I have much to thank them for.

TF2 was my first proper introduction to multiplayer shooters, trading, all while harboring a festering desire of mine to become truly great at the game. A feat which I'm yet to surpass, well over 1000 hours into the game. The influence held by this game is so immense, and I have nothing but the utmost level of respect and disdain towards valve for creating a near perfect shooter while simultaneously ignoring and allowing the game to go unloved.

A masterpiece of a class based shooter which deserves much praise for all that it has accomplished within the 15 years it has been alive and kicking.