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Team Fortress 2
Developer(s)	Valve Corporation
Publisher(s)	Valve Corporation (Steam)
Distributor(s)	Electronic Arts (All) Unalis (Windows)
Designer(s)	Robin Walker, John Cook
Engine	Source engine
Release date(s)	Q3 2007 (in conjunction with Half-Life 2: Episode Two and Portal)[1]
Genre(s)	First-person shooter
Mode(s)	Multiplayer
Rating(s)	ESRB: Rating Pending
Platform(s)	PC, Xbox 360, PS3
Media	Steam, DVD and Blu-ray

Team Fortress 2 is the long-anticipated sequel to the original Team Fortress mod for Quake being developed by Valve Corporation. It is a multiplayer team-based first-person shooter with strategy elements. The game has been through various concepts and designs: in 1999 the game appeared to be deviating from the original Team Fortress by heading toward a more realistic and militaristic style of gameplay, and the design metamorphosed further over the game's seven-year development. The final rendition of Team Fortress 2 currently appears to bear more resemblance to the original Team Fortress design, and sports a distinctive, cartoonish visual style which hasn't been seen in a first-person shooter since 2004's XIII.

The lack of information or apparent progress for six years of the game's supposed development caused it to be labelled as vaporware, and it was regularly featured in the top five of Wired News' annual vaporware list among other ignominies.

As of August 24, 2006, two trailers for Team Fortress 2 have been released and are widely available on various gaming-related websites and Steam.

During the July 2006 Electronic Arts press conference, Valve revealed that Team Fortress 2 would ship as the multiplayer component of Half-Life 2: Episode Two. A conference trailer demonstrated the game's new graphical style featuring all of the original Team Fortress classes, points towards a more light-hearted and whimsical visual style as opposed to the dark, somewhat more traditional military simulation that had originally been shown. Gabe Newell, the managing director of Valve, has said their goal is to create "the best looking and best-playing class-based multiplayer game."^[2][3]

A collage of the Team Fortress 2 player classes in action. Top row: (left to right) Demoman, Engineer, Heavy; Middle row: (left to right) Medic, Pyro, Scout; Bottom row: (left to right) Sniper, Soldier, Spy.

Just like its predecessor, Team Fortress 2 players will be able to choose to play as one of several archetypal classes at the start of a match, each with its own unique strengths and weaknesses. While it is unknown if the abilities of each class will be similar to the original Team Fortress, all indications so far are that the basic elements will remain the same: Heavy Weapons characters will have huge guns with incredible firepower but will have a slow walking speed, scouts will be able to move very quickly, but are lightly armoured, and so on. While it is unclear at this time what sort of game types will be included upon release, capture the flag and control point matches are likely to return.

Team Fortress 2 will not opt for the realistic graphical approaches taken by the official Valve games Day of Defeat and Counter-Strike. Rather, it will use a more stylized, cartoon-like approach. The effect seems to have been achieved using a special Valve in-house rendering and lighting technique making extensive use of Phong shading.^[4] The game will debut the Source engine's new dynamic lighting, shadowing and soft particle technologies, among many other unannounced features, alongside Half-Life 2: Episode Two. It should be noted however, that the depth of field and motion blur effects seen in the game's trailers cannot feasibly be rendered during gameplay^[5] unless inferior approximations, such as vector motion blur or image -space depth of field, were to be used.

Nine playable classes have been confirmed,^[2] all returning from the original Team Fortress. Robin Walker has discussed the possibility of introducing new classes over time,^{[citation needed]} but the initial release is expected to include only the 'classic' set, as described in a hands-on preview by one publication, Game Informer:

Soldier

Primary Weapon: Rocket Launcher

Secondary Weapon: Shotgun

Melee Weapon: Shovel

Characteristics: Rocket launcher can also be used to rocketjump.

Medic

Primary Weapon: Syringe Launcher

Secondary Weapon: Medi-gun

Melee Weapon: Bonesaw

Characteristics: Healing support class.

Heavy (formerly Heavy Weapons Guy)

In-game action with the Heavy on the 2fort bridge

Primary Weapon: Minigun

Secondary Weapon: Shotgun

Melee Weapon: Fists

Characteristics: The slowest, most powerful class.

Spy

Primary Weapon: Revolver

Secondary Weapon: Cigarette case, Disguise Kit

Melee Weapon: Butterfly Knife

Other Weapon: Sapper

Characteristics: Can disguise himself as an enemy class, has limited 10 second invisibility, can "one shot kill" any enemy from behind.

Scout

Primary Weapon: Scattergun

Secondary Weapon: Pistol

Melee Weapon: Aluminum Baseball Bat

Characteristics: The fastest and lightest class, able to briefly stun enemies on touch.

Pyro

Primary Weapon: Flamethrower

Secondary Weapon: Shotgun

Melee Weapon: Fire axe

Characteristics: The best close-quarters class, usually seen in defence due to his short range.

Demoman

Primary Weapon: Sticky Bomb Launcher

Secondary Weapon: Grenade Launcher

Melee Weapon: Bottle

Characteristics: Versatile combat class, able to lay traps and lob long-distance grenades.

Engineer

In-game action with the Engineer

Primary Weapon: Shotgun

Secondary Weapon: Pistol

Melee Weapon: Wrench

Other Weapon: Construction PDA

Characteristics: Defensive support class, able to build guns, health & ammo dispensers, and personal teleporters.

Sniper

Primary Weapon: Sniper Rifle

Secondary Weapon: Submachine Gun

Melee Weapon: Machete

Characteristics: Typical sniper class; the scope appears to use a slight fisheye lens effect.

The game will ship with 6 maps with more being added as time goes on.^[6] Of the classic maps, Well, 2Fort, and dustbowl will be making a return.^[6]

There will only be one Capture the Flag map (2Fort) out of the box. The other maps will be Capture Point Matches and Territorial Control[1].

A box art design for the 'old' Team Fortress 2.

Originally planned as a free mod for Quake II, development on Team Fortress 2 switched to the GoldSrc/Half-Life engine in 1998 after the development team (Team Fortress Software, consisting of Robin Walker and John Cook) were first contracted and finally outright employed by Valve Corporation,^[7] then merely Valve Software. At the point of Team Fortress Software's acquisition production moved up a notch and the game was promoted to a standalone, retail product;^[7] to tide fans over (since, as well as time issues, much of TF's player base had purchased Half-Life solely in anticipation of TF2's free release), work began on a simple port of the game which was released in 1999 as the free Team Fortress Classic.^[8] Notably, TFC was built entirely within the publicly available Half-Life SDK as an example to the community and industry of its flexibility.^[9]

Walker and Cook had been heavily influenced by their three-month contractual stint at Valve, and now they were working full-time on their design, which was undergoing rapid metamorphosis. TF2 was to be a modern war game, with a command hierarchy including a commander with a bird's-eye view of the battlefield, parachute drops over enemy territory, networked voice communication and numerous other innovations that planted the game, quite literally, years ahead of its time.^[10]

The new design was revealed to the public at the 1999 E3,^{[citation needed]} where it earned several awards including Best Online Game and Best Action Game.^[11] By this time TF2 had gained a new subtitle, Brotherhood of Arms, and the results of Walker and Cook working at Valve were becoming clear. Several new and at the time unprecedented technologies on show: Parametric animation seamlessly blended animations for smoother, more life-like movement,^[12] and Intel's Multi-resolution mesh^[12] technology dynamically reduced the detail of on-screen elements as they became more distant to improve performance^[12] (a technique today known as Level of Detail). No date was given at the expo.

In mid-2000, Valve announced that development of TF2 had been delayed for a second time.^[13] They put the news down to development switching to an in-house, proprietary engine that is today known as the Source engine. It was at around this time that all news ran dry and TF2 entered its notorious six-year radio silence, which was to last until July 13 2006 (see 'Release' section). During that time both Walker and Cook worked on various other Valve projects—Walker was project lead on Half-Life 2: Episode One and Cook became a Steam developer, among other tasks—raising doubts that Team Fortress 2 was really the active project that would be repeatedly described.

A 1999 promotional screenshot, demonstrating TF2's then gritty and modern-day art.

The next significant public development occurred in the run up to Half-Life 2's 2004 release: Valve's Director of Marketing Doug Lombardi claimed both that TF2 was still in development and that information concerning it would come after HL2's release.^{[citation needed]} This did not happen; nor was any news released in a timely manner after Lombardi's similar claim during an early interview regarding Half-Life 2: Episode One, then known as Half-Life 2: Aftermath.^{[citation needed]} Near the time of Episode One's release Valve's Gabe Newell again claimed that news on Team Fortress 2 would be forthcoming^{[citation needed]}—and this time it was. Team Fortress 2 was re-unveiled a month later at the July 2006 EA Summer Showcase event.^[2]

Walker revealed in March 2007 that Valve had quietly built "probably three to four different games" before settling on their final design.^[14] Due to the game's lengthy development cycle it is often mentioned alongside Duke Nukem Forever, another long-anticipated game that has seen many years of protracted development and engine changes.

The 'old' Team Fortress 2 is quite possibly the only game to have spawned a thriving sub-genre without ever being released itself.

When the Half-Life 2 source tree was leaked in late 2003 three TF2 models were included, along with direct references to the game in the stolen source code. They consisted of an alien, Combine-like grunt, and a very cartoony and out-of-proportion soldier. Many interpret the code as making references to the 7 Hours War, an integral part of the Half-Life story. However, the two leaked player models did not look combine or human, and TF2 was most likely going to have an "alien battleground" basis. Valve dismissed these ideas as "ungrounded" and "merely speculating".^{[citation needed]}

While Valve were very successful in keeping the game under wraps during its protracted development, when the full Source SDK was released the Half-Life 2 source code it provided contained many references to the game.^[15] Some merely confirmed what was already believed, but others provided completely new information, such as the presence of NPCs in multiplayer matches, the game taking place in the Half-Life 2 universe, fixed plasma gun and missile launcher emplacements, and more.

This information is now known to be outdated and is extremely unlikely to have any bearing on the final game.

• Team Fortress
• Team Fortress Classic
• Half-Life 2: Episode Two
• Portal

Official

Team Fortress 2 official site (currently redirects to Half-Life 2: Episode Two's official website)

Valve Software

Community

PlanetFortress: The only remaining fansite for Team Fortress 2. Not maintained, but still available

TeamFortressTwo.com: An up and coming fansite for Team Fortress 2.

Media

Trailer 1 - Steam

Trailer 2 - Steam