Team Fortress 2 isn’t far off being a decade old, having released in 2007 as part of The Orange Box, and yet it’s only now that it’s getting matchmaking and competitive multiplayer modes. It’s mad that it’s taken this long, given the rise of eSports and sister titles within Valve, Counter Strike: Global Offensive and DOTA 2.
There’s actually been word of this new competitive play for quite some time, with Valve forming a beta group for this back in February, but it’s only now that it’s been released.
There’s two sides to the update – which also adds three new community made maps, finalises the Pass Time game mode and has its usual bevy of tweaks and fixes – with matchmaking affecting both competitive and casual play.
Competitive matchmakes you into 6v6 matches, letting you rank up (or down) with every win and loss. To keep things even, there’s no class or weapon restrictions – though you can’t switch classes mid-match – no random criticals, no team changing, and fixed shotgun spreads. Control Point plays on symmetrical maps in a best of 3 or best of 5 match, while Attack/Defence maps are played to over two rounds with the fastest attacking team winning.
In order to discourage people from cheating – because you know some will try – you either need to attach a phone number to your Steam account and have a Premium TF2 Account, or pay $9.99 for a Competitive Access Pass. Leaving in-progress matches will count as an automatic loss, with temporary bans coming into place as well, while honest to god disconnections will let you try to rejoin the in-progress match or have a black mark to your name for abandoning the match.
Matchmaking also affects casual play though. This is unranked and shuffles you into matches of 12v12, instead of letting you loose on random matches, doing away with auto-balancing that has happened thus far. However, there’s a new levelling stat, so that you can get a nice shiny big number next to your name if you play enough.
Kennykazey
Gotta combat Overwatch somehow I suppose. TF2 has been overdue a new mode for a while.
The Lone Steven
Valve……doing games?
I er…
Guys, is the world ending? I mean, we all agreed that the world would end before Valve releases anything else and this techincally is content.
If so, i call dibs on the bunker.