Yeah, it's been 10 years since the initial release of Team fortress 2 by Valve. Which is still one of the all-time great team-based shooters, where its design and hat influence can be felt across many of today's hottest properties. And to celebrate 10 years Valve has released a big update that includes a new in-house designed map, and a whole slew of community-created content.

The Jungle Inferno update, as it's being called also introduces a new Team Fortress 2 animated short - and it's awesome.



The new map, cheekily introduced in the animation above is a play of Jurassic Park called Mercenary Park. Designed and created in-house at Valve, it's a jungle-themed control point map. In addition to that Valve are highlighting some of the most upvoted community-created maps during the update.

Of course a big Team Fortress 2 update also means new emotes and cosmetics, also created by the community. For more info on Jungle Inferno head here.

As to the question of timing, it's anyone's guess as to why Team Fortress 2 is finally getting matchmaking and a new Competitive Mode as part of a new 'Meet Your Match' update. Perhaps it has something to do with another popular team-based shooter currently out. Well, whatever the reason may be, as per the overwatch overview the new Competitive Mode is a ranked 6v6 game mode featuring all Team Fortress classes, where player progression unlocks special titles and badges. And hats too probably.



The new Competitive Mode is currently only available to Premium owners of the game.

Following on from yesterday's awesome short film titled "Expiration Date," developer Valve has revealed that the new 'Love & War' free content update will usher in a handful of new weapons plus a chance to gain limited time bread-based variations on already existing items.

As part of the imminent update, the Scout will get a new scattergun called The Back Scatter; the Sniper will get a new rifle dubbed The Classic; the Demoman will get a new ship's wheel shield, The Tide Turner; and the Soldier will get a new rocket launcher named The Air Strike. The game's two blast jumping classes, Demoman and Soldier, can also employ a parachute called The B.A.S.E. Jumper that slows their descent.

Four bread-based weapons — which appear to be sentient, tumor-laden mutant bread variations of existing items — are also being added. Versions of the Sniper's Jarate, the Scout's Mad Milk, the Spy's Sapper and the Heavy's Gloves of Running Urgently can be crafted in their baked good form for a limited time. Players will have to craft a bread box before July 9th for a chance at the new breaded items.

Find the sneak peek video below showing the new weapons in action for a brief bit of time, or head to the splash page for more info.

Developer Valve has unveiled a brand-new animated short film for Team Fortress 2's latest update, clocking in at nearly 15 minutes and marking the dev's most ambitious film yet with the help of Source Filmmaker.

The short film's release, titled "Expiration Date," coincides with the latest free update to free-to-play game, the Love and War update. The video tells the tale of Team Red's Scout and his attempt to strike up romance with the team's corpse disposal clerical assistant Miss Pauling. Of course, it wouldn't be a Team Fortress 2 short film without some explosive action, this time the team battling their newest enemy: bread.

The game's update will offer TF2 players a handful of new expressions ranging from the chance to dance the conga while battling it out through to lovingly headbutting each other or square dancing the night away. As usual with Valve game updates, this one will most likely be lasting a few days at the least, bringing all kinds of bread-ifying craziness to the game.

Valve has revealed the second part to their Two Cities update detailed yesterday, offering to boost up the Medic's usefulness by giving him the ability to revive dead teammates and also boost his shield capabilities.

The update has also added in a new map for the Mann vs. Machine mode, taking us back to the Medic's vaguely European hometown of Rottenburg — a sprawling village famous for its centuries-old traditions of "1) chasing the next in the resident lineage of mad doctors out of town with torches and pitchforks whenever they swapped out too many super-charged baboon hearts, and 2) never having been attacked by an army of robots." How quaint.

Thanks to the upgrades that the Medic has received, players should find themselves able to fend off the pesky murdering robots using both the revive skill and the new shield boost, which will repel projectiles, electrocute robots, and shoot Mad Milk syringes.

Also included in the update is a new rendition of the Soldier's bazooka, which will now shoot faster rockets that temporarily stun any target they don't kill. Direct hits to a target increase splash damage radius to surrounding enemies.

For more on the two new updates check out the official splash page, or browse your eyes down below for Valve's much-loved animation work in 'Mann vs Machine: The Sound of Medicine'.

Valve's ever-growing free-to-play FPS Team Fortress 2 is once again gaining some new updates, this time offering up cosmetic weapon and character effects maps to add onto the ever-growing rotation and tweaks to the Mann vs. Machine co-op gameplay.

Titled 'Two Cities', the first half of the update has been laid out for bare eyes on the Team Fortress 2 blog today, showcasing a new Mann vs. Machine map, Mannhattan. The new map will take "our mercs all the way from the sun-blasted gravel pits of the Badlands to the urban sprawl of the East Coast, where they'll have to defend the manufacturing arm of Saxton Hale's boutique Mhankö line."

"Mannhattan's robot hordes can advance their own spawn points and introduce new bombs into the map for the first time, making for a unique new MvM experience."

Other additions to the update include the weapon and character effects, which can be gained from new Killstreak Kits found after completing a Two Cities tour. Rarer Killstreak Kits are also available from crafting, which will presumably offer up the more graphically awesome character effects.

Also on the agenda it seems Valve has been kind enough to continue the Australian recognition in Team Fortress 2, with word that those completing a tour of Two Cities' Manhattan map may find their sparkly mitts on what some might say preposterously rare items in the game: the Australium weapon.

For more on the Team Fortress 2 update check out the full blog post.

Continuing their yearly tradition of celebrating the spooky day of Halloween, Valve has today revealed new details on fifth annual "Scream Fortress" update, which has now gone live with a new Payload Race map called Helltower. Of course, not to be completely outdone, Valve has also added in the ability for everyone to wield magic. Yes, magic.

Claw your way through piles of musty books and skeletons while old people yell at each other about nonsense and get carried off to Hell! That's right, Team Feartress fans— we combined the terror of Halloween with the more muted and depressing terror of a retirement home, and accidentally invented an entirely new brand of horror! Then we realized listening to two old men bicker from beyond the grave isn't that horrifying, so we threw in a bunch of crazy spells you can cast at each other!

The new update gives players the chance to equip a spellbook to their character's Action Slot, allowing them to reenact Harry Potter and cast lethal spells against opponents. You'll be screaming in horror for sure, especially with the new Payload map making its way in the new update, tasking you with pushing a corpse-filled cart through a magic-blasted, skeleton-infested terrorscape to reach the infernal maw of a gaping Hellmouth. Spooky.

The update also includes over 100 new Halloween-themed items, fit for any hat collector who was in doubt at the size of their collection. For those who may be too busy battling the evils of Hell come Halloween, the update will be going through until November 11th so you'll have plenty of time to battle the evil spirits and cast some spooky magic. The full list of Halloween-related changes can be found here, which also includes a terrifying new comic to read.

If you were wondering how resourceful a game's community could be, look no further then Valve's Team Fortress 2 community who have just announced their first update for the title.

Titled Robotic Boogaloo, the new update will include 57 new in-game items marking the most community items that Valve has ever shipped. These new items will initially be available only in RoboCrates, however after June 3 they'll turn into rare drops for all.

This update is 100% created by the TF2 community. And when we say everything, we mean everything—the in-game content, the update hub website, the animated short, the comic, even the splash images in the Steam store. Even better, everything you created avoided the classic trap of using other companies’ intellectual property. (Those of you working on a Darth Vader Pyro mask, we've got some bad news for you.) Plus, in a first for the Team Fortress economy, all the creators of the Robotic Boogaloo Update have decided to share the revenue earned from the sale of RoboCrate Keys. That means that everyone involved will be profiting from this update, not just the people making hats.

The new update also comes with a very interesting animated short which you can check out below. An informative community website on just what exactly is involved in this community update has also gone live which also includes a comic for those who would rather look at some colourful images.

If it wasn't already a sure thing, given the kind words previously spoken by Gabe Newell and Mike Abrash, Valve has now confirmed that support for the upcoming Oculus Rift head-mounted display will be coming to the Source Engine, with programmer Joe Ludwig revealing to Engadget that VR functionality in Team Fortress 2 will be publically available "within the next couple of weeks".

Valve programmer Joe Ludwig revealed as much during a recent visit Engadget paid to the Bellevue, Wash.-based game company. "This is a mode that everybody who has a Rift dev kit and access to Team Fortress 2 will be able to play, just on public and in the same servers that everybody else is playing in," Ludwig said. Of course, "everybody" doesn't include Mac or Linux TF2 players just yet. "We don't have a Mac or Linux SDK from Oculus quite yet, but once we get those, we'll get it ported over to those other platforms," he explained. Oculus tells us those SDKs are coming.

Engadget explains Team Fortress 2 as the Oculus Rift's first official game, however that's not entirely correct, as Meteor Entertainment's mech combat game Hawken is also expected to support the device once the developer kits start arriving in the hands of backers of the successful Kickstarter project.

Valve has revealed that the upcoming Mecha update, which will see the introduction of more robots and a new map in the Mann vs Machine mode, has now gone live for Team Fortress 2 players. The new content update also includes the usual foray of hats that only an insane person would not want to collect, plus the Naught and Nice Crates.

So, you battle-hardened MvM vets think you've got that whole "stopping murderous waves of robots" thing figured out, huh? Well, re-check those figures, because the robot hordes just added a deadly new class to their clanking, soulless ranks: The Mecha-Engineer! And as the incredible art above this paragraph illustrates, it will be over one hundred feet tall! (It will not.) Not to worry, though, because it looks like Engineer will also be one hundred feet tall! (He also will not.)

The sprawling Big Rock is the largest MvM map yet, which means the attacking robot hordes will have an extra-long journey to reach the Mann Co. base you'll be defending. If that sounds like the easiest MvM map ever devised, you're right! Merry Smissmas everybody! Well, you would be right if Gray Mann hadn't invented the deadly new Mecha-Engineer class. These Grinch-like Smissmas cakewalk destroyers can skip huge areas of the path with their teleporting ability, and also teleport other robots forward instantly with their "telling other robots about the teleporter" ability.

The Mecha update also includes three new weapons; the Rescue Ranger Shotgun for the Engineer, the Loose Cannon Grenade Launcher for the Demoman and the Vaccinator Medigun for the Medic. You can find the full list of details over at the official website, plus the patch notes over here. Happy hat hunting!

Details of Team Fortress 2's promised Halloween festivities have landed over on the official site , where you can now view a new digital comic, and prepare for "Scream Fortress".

Scheduled to run from October 26th (PST) though to November 8th, Scream Fortress includes a special King of the Hill map where players battle a "bomb-spewing, fate-spinning spectral magician" Merasmus, some magic spells that can be applied to backpack items for cosmetic fun, and a new map for the cooperative Mann vs Machine mode, titled "Wave 666" that replaces the modes robots with zombies:

Your robot attackers have been replaced by a single apocalyptic wave of zombies! How many zombies? How does 666 sound, fear friends? Because it sounds like a candy-ass pile of crap to us! 666 is where we started. But where we ended was MORE THAN EIGHT HUNDRED! That said, we're still calling it "Wave 666", because we asked Glenn Danzig and he said that sounded way more badass than "Wave More Than Eight Hundred".

Get the full scoop over at teamfortress.com.

Valve has released a very mockingly open letter penned by Mann Co. CEO Saxton Hale, to all those who quit mid-game in their free-to-play hat wearing FPS Team Fortress 2. Outlining new methods to combat the quitters, the fictional CEO has seemingly had enough of those who quit mid-game while fighting in the latest robot fiasco update, Mann vs. Machine.

Bidwell’s drummed up some penalties for any coward he catches running away from the frontlines. If any of you cowards out there find these penalties too harsh, don’t worry about it, because see Point #1 (I am coming for you). Whatever penalties you get will seem like a day at the Being Afraid store (or wherever it is cowards like to shop) when I get my big angry hands on your beady little heads.

The latest addition to the TF2 blog outlines the changes being made for anyone who "abandons" any of the Mann vs. Machine servers. The current gist is that anyone who does abandon at first won't be punished, however repeated offences will be temporarily placed in a low-priority pool and will experience longer matchmaking times.

Fear not for those that accidentally disconnect, or in the case of Internet shortages, as the team has made it clear that there needs to be certain requirements met in order to be considered someone who has abandoned a game.

There is a difference between leaving a game and "abandoning" it. It is considered "abandoning" a game if all of the following circumstances are met:
You leave a game while playing a Mann Up game on an official server; and
You have not played through a single wave to completion or failure; and
There are 5 or more players currently connected to the server (including you).
Otherwise, it is safe to disconnect a game without being considered an "abandoner."

These changes have been put into effect as of today, and will only affect those in the Mann Up games. Check out the full FAQ for a more detailed outline of the new system, and also check out the open letter from Saxton Hale here.

Revealing the fruits of their latest ARG teaser, Valve Software have officially announced Mann vs Machine, uniting mortal enemies RED and BLU in a new horde-style co-operative game mode for the free-to-play shooter Team Fortress 2.

Gray Mann has built an unstoppable automaton army with a single purpose: to destroy all things Mann Co. Luckily for you, the majority of this robot legion is equipped with basic weaponry that could never level an entire building. Unluckily, they also have access to giant bombs, which they’d drag through hell if it meant dropping one in a Mann Co. bombhole. And it’s up to you to stop them. And it’s up to a small cadre of Special Robots to stop you from stopping the regular robots.

...Mann vs. Machine is a new co-operative game for Team Fortress 2 that lets you and five friends wage a desperate battle to stop a lethal horde of robots from deploying a bomb in one of Mann Co.’s many strongholds. Take advantage of breaks between waves to upgrade your abilities and weapons. Survive all the waves in any of a variety of missions to earn incredible loot.

There's still more to be revealed, but impressively, Mann vs Machine is set to launch on August 15th 2012 (US Pacfic Time), so we won't have to wait long to start kicking some robot ass. Watch the Mann vs Machine trailer below (here in HD) and check out the official website for more details.

Over the weekend, a series of clues released on the official Team Fortress 2 website and in the game itself have been pieced together by dedicated fans, seemingly pointing towards an upcoming new "Gray" faction to mix up the old Red versus Blu feud in the popular free to play shooter.

Subtle links in bloodstains on the tf2 site lead visitors to a document revealing "Gray Mann" (a long lost brother of TF's feud-founding Redmond and Blutarch Mann) and a will of the three brother's father Zephaniah Mann, but the real juice was revealed when TF2 players -- by performing a convoluted series of in-game actions and following more threads -- uncovered this webcomic, introducing Gray Mann and his robotic leanings, suggesting a connection with the long-rumoured Man versus Machine update.

A report on Kotaku indicates that the always resourceful NeoGAF forum regulars and the valvearg.com IRC channel have been leading the charge in Valve's latest alternate reality game, and one of them has put together a rather awesome video compilation of all the clues so far, which you can watch embedded below.

I don't know why any of us expected more, but those hoping for a Team Fortress animated series based on the Adult Swim TV networks earlier teasings, you're going to be pretty disappointed. That is of course, unless you really like TF2 hats.

That's right, the exciting mystery project was a Chicken hat for Team Fortress 2, supposedly a cross-promotion for Adult Swim's stop-motion sketch show Robot Chicken. Well, at least we got Meet the Pyro, and with the Source Filmmaker, fans can now make their own damn animated TF2 cartoons.

There's still a dim ray of hope we might see something more substitutional from this partnership in the future however, as the promoters promise that "this ain't the last you'll hear from Adult Swim and Valve", and a brief FAQ on the topic of whether they are making a Team Fortress Cartoon, instructs us to "Go ask your mother".

Approaching five years since the game's launch, Valve has at long last released the last of their popular character videos for Team Fortress 2, introducing the most enigmatic of the classes with Meet the Pyro

The masked arsonist known only as "Pyro" has always been the most unknowable of the Team Fortress mercenaries. Until now. Today the mask comes off. Metaphorically. That's right: It's time to Meet the Pyro.

Making the long wait worth it however, they gone one further and launched Source Filmmaker, opening the door to the community and Source-Engine mod teams to construct their own such movies using game assets. It's currently in closed beta, just like Dota 2 and Global Ops, it seems like it shouldn't be too hard for anybody interested enough to get a look in.

The Source Filmmaker (SFM) is the movie-making tool built and used by us here at Valve to make movies inside the Source game engine. Because the SFM uses the same assets as the game, anything that exists in the game can be used in the movie, and vice versa. By utilizing the hardware rendering power of a modern gaming PC, the SFM allows storytellers to work in a what-you-see-is-what-you-get environment so they can iterate in the context of what it will feel like for the final audience.

Watch the Meet the Pryo video below (or here in our HD video library) and head over to Sourcefilmmaker.com for more details, including how to get in on the beta.

Overnight Valve sent through word that they're kicking off a three-day celebration titled "Pyromania" to ring in a host of new game features for Team Fortress 2.

Headlining the week's activities will be the release of "Meet the Pyro" on Wednesday, the ninth and final installment in the "Meet the Team" series of TF2 video shorts. Stay tuned for more throughout the week.

You can hit up the official festivities page right here, which features a countdown to the headline event, and an option to check out what's on offer across all three. Today it's Doomsday, an all-new game mode, with seven new "Astro-chievements" to collect and the usual Valve comedy gold.

Doomsday pits BLU against RED, with only one team getting the honor of transporting a suitcase nuke full of recalled Mann Co. Australium to American monkeynaut Poopy Joe’s rocket, so he can blast off and hunt down Soviet space chimp Vladimir Bananas. It's the same spirit of competitive enterprise that stalled the moon landing by three years when Buzz Aldrin suplexed Neil Armstrong into a pile of folding chairs at Astromania '69! Both teams will attempt to get the necessary fuel up a preposterously slow-moving elevator and into Poopy Joe’s Australium-powered rocket to the stars.

Drop us your thoughts on the new additions in the Comments section below.

With speculation overwhelmingly pointing towards an upcoming Team Fortress 2 animated TV series, the official website for US TV Network Comedy Central's Adult Swim department.

A promotional page on the Adult Swim site describes the venture only as "something you'll probably enjoy", teasing interested visitors with a message "To learn how their video game peanut butter will be getting in our network's chocolate, come back next week," and directing them to a newsletter sign-up page that features an image of TF2's pyro character with the caption "We're your new family now".

Adult Swim is known for its adult-orientated animated TV series such as Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Venture Bros and Sealab 2021.

It's been almost a year since Team Fortress 2 went free-to-play and we met the Medic and over the past four years, Valve have introduced us to all of the other members of the Team Fortress 2 contingent... except the Pyro.

Well it looks like the flame-weilding, mumbling, sociopath may be finally getting his fifteen minutes soon, as suggested by this teaser image over on the official TF2 website that links through to the eight other meet the team videos.

Note however, that the image does say "coming in 2012", which in Valve Time, could just as soon mean 2015 or so.

It's currently Valentine's Day in America and usually on this special day everyone goes out of their way to spend as much money as possible to impress the opposite sex, usually with flowers, chocolates or a puppy.

However, the Team Fortress 2 Development team over at Valve think all that is a bit over-the-top and far to expensive. Their solution? A $100 in-game diamond ring, which is apparently useless, but just shows how much you really love that someone.

What if we told you that you could waste as much as 1/6 less money this Valentine's Day? What if we added that you could do it without even leaving your house? Then what if we sweetened the deal further by saying sorry for calling you stupid earlier?

Introducing the "Something Special For Someone Special". It's ring-shaped, it's gift-wrapped, it's basically useless, and it's really expensive ($100!). In short, it's the most accurate simulation of an actual Valentine's Day gift ever made available to the public.

Here's how it works:

First, it's not tradable, only giftable. When it shows up in your special someone's backpack, they can click on it to open a menu that will let them accept your proposal. Once the proposal's been accepted, a message will be broadcast to the entire TF community that will include your name, your special someone's name, and whatever you decided to call the ring. Then presto, the gift turns into two matching diamond bands you can wear in the rain while you smooch up a storm, you crazy kids.

Valve showed how successful hats can be, so it's no real wonder that they are trying to see if this avenue can be populated with other items, like the diamond ring. The question is, would you buy it?