Valve is finally putting Team Fortress 2 in the hands of fans. Players received source code for the popular shooter
„Do it yourself,” is how Team Fortress 2 players read Valve's recent decision to put the free-to-play FPS's official developer tools into the hands of the community.
After an eventful 2024 (by fan standards), Valve unexpectedly gifted Team Fortress 2 players with a great present: not just an update, but a full set of developer tools for this popular shooter.
Let's face it, Valve doesn't really remind us of the existence of TF 2. Although it remains an incredibly popular title, even the biggest fans have long abandoned hope for official development on par with other games-as-a-service, even in the form promised in the "Heavy Update."
Nonetheless, the last year brought a chance for... not necessarily active development, but at least news regarding the possibility of slightly less passive support for TF 2. Dealing with cheaters, publishing the final issue of the official comic (after 7 years), fairly regular updates with fixes, and even a new crossover - this is more than fans have gotten in the past 7 years.
Team Fortress 2 in the hands of fans
One of the popular demands (or rather dreams) of the community centered around the game was essentially to hand over Team Fortress 2 to the fans. Truth be told, the dedicated fans of the game were developing it by designing new items, unique specimens, maps, etc. However, so far they could only send their ideas to Valve and hope for their implementation in the next game updates.
This will change now. The official game account on X published a post (the second in 3 months!... and over 2 years) with an important announcement: the official developer tools (SDK) for Team Fortress 2 are now available for players to download, allowing them to create "new games based on TF2." Put simply, players were given a chance to modify the game with almost complete freedom.
An unofficial (hacked) version of the SDK was circulating on the web. Although it's from 2017, TF 2 has still experienced considerable changes since then. Not to mention that using this release wouldn't be a good idea if we were thinking about distributing projects based on it.
However, now fans can legally create new games based on TF 2 and share them on Steam - provided that such projects will be completely free (Valve grants only a non-commercial license). So, fans who have been keeping Team Fortress 2 alive all along, can finally save their beloved game.
Players, of course, reacted with enthusiasm to Valve's announcement. Now they can independently add not only content, but also fixes. Of course, there are also more or less fun comments: that Valve has officially declared they're done with TF 2 and are compelling players to continue developing the game themselves.
Still, nobody truly complains - since this is what most players have desired for a long time (at least those who think more realistically: no serious person believed in Valve actively developing TF 2 anymore).
Multi-person updates
This isn't the end of good news. Valve also announced the update of all multiplayer titles based on the Source engine: not only Team Fortress 2, but also, among others, Counter Strike: Source, Half-Life 2: Deathmatch, and Day of Defeat: Source.
TF 2 alone received quite a big update with a friend for the chicken ("because friendship is magic") and many fixes. These take into account less pixelated shadows and other visual additions (some straight from the anniversary edition of Half-Life 2), as well as improvements for some newer maps.
Unfortunately, there are no roses without thorns, and in this case, the thorn turned out to be the removal of a bug that interrupted the player's voice commands in shallow water. The famous "Pootis" is still alive, but fans using this "bug" are not happy.
