48 Fun Facts About Team Fortress 2

Team Fortress 2 was released in October 2007 as part of which Valve compilation?

The Orange Box bundled Team Fortress 2 with Half-Life 2 and its two Episodes, and launched on October 10, 2007.

Which puzzle game was one of the three brand-new titles in the 2007 compilation that launched TF2?

Portal was one of the box's three new games, beside Team Fortress 2 and Half-Life 2: Episode Two; the compilation launched on October 10, 2007.

What does RED, one of the two teams in TF2, stand for?

Reliable Excavation and Demolition is the red team's cover company, a demolition firm in the game's lore; its rival is a construction firm with a blue logo.

What does BLU stand for?

Builders League United is the blue team's cover company, a construction firm whose feud with the red team's demolition company drives the game's lore.

How many playable classes does Team Fortress 2 have?

Nine classes ship in the game, split into three offense, three defense and three support roles, and all nine have been playable since the 2007 launch.

Which class, a baseball fan from Boston, can double jump and counts twice when capturing points?

The Scout is the fastest class; his default kit is a scattergun, a pistol and a baseball bat, and he captures points at double speed.

'Rocket jumping' at the cost of some health is a signature move of which class?

The Soldier is the jingoistic Midwesterner whose default kit is a rocket launcher, a shotgun and a shovel; firing a rocket at his own feet launches him skyward.

Which class's flamethrower can fire blasts of compressed air that repel enemies and projectiles?

The Pyro is a pyromaniac of unknown gender and origin hidden inside a fire-retardant suit; the flamethrower's airblast reflects rockets and extinguishes burning teammates.

Which class hails from Ullapool, Scotland, and can 'sticky jump' with his own bombs?

The Demoman is a one-eyed Scot from Ullapool who carries a grenade launcher and a sticky bomb launcher, and canonically drinks heavily.

Which class is the slowest in the game and refers to his minigun as 'Sasha'?

The Heavy is the slowest and largest class; his other default weapons are a shotgun and his fists, and he was the first class to star in a promotional short.

Which class deploys sentry guns, dispensers and teleporters?

The Engineer is the team's Texan builder; his wrench both fights and upgrades the sentry guns, dispensers and teleporters he places.

What is the name of the invulnerability meter that the Medi Gun builds while healing teammates?

ÜberCharge is the meter the Medi Gun fills while healing; deploying it grants roughly eight seconds of invulnerability to both healer and patient.

Which class comes from Stuttgart, Germany?

The Medic is the game's German doctor from Stuttgart; his default loadout is a syringe gun, the Medi Gun and a bonesaw.

The throwable jar weapon 'Jarate' belongs to which class?

The Sniper throws the Jarate jar as a secondary weapon; the marksman was raised in the Australian outback and carries a kukri for close work.

Which class carries an invisibility device and can disguise himself as any player?

The Spy, a French operative, cloaks with an invisibility watch and disguises with a cigarette case; his butterfly knife instantly kills an enemy stabbed from behind.

Who voices the Administrator, the announcer who barks objectives over the loudspeakers?

Ellen McLain voices the Administrator; she is also the voice of GLaDOS in the puzzle game that shipped in the same box.

Which actress voices Miss Pauling, the Administrator's assistant?

Ashly Burch voices Miss Pauling; she is also Aloy in the Horizon games and Tiny Tina in the Borderlands series.

In which month and year did Team Fortress 2 go free-to-play?

Team Fortress 2 went free-to-play in June 2011 alongside the Über Update, after in-game cosmetic sales had shown they could fund the game.

How many videos make up the 'Meet the Team' promotional series?

Ten videos were made, one for each class plus Meet the Sandvich; the series ran from May 2007 to its finale on June 27, 2012.

Which of the promotional class videos leaked onto YouTube several days before its intended release?

Meet the Spy leaked onto YouTube in May 2009, days before its planned debut, so Valve published it early.

Which 2014 update was the short 'Expiration Date' released to promote?

Love and War arrived in June 2014 with new taunts and the bread monsters; the fifteen-minute short Expiration Date premiered the day before as its lead-in.

Which cooperative mode, revealed on August 15, 2012, pits players against waves of robots?

Mann vs. Machine launched on August 15, 2012 as the game's cooperative mode, with a team defending against waves of robots across maps like Coal Town and Decoy.

Who is the Australian adventurer and CEO of Mann Co.?

Saxton Hale is the mustachioed Australian who runs Mann Co., the company that sells the game's weapons and hats; he wrestles wildlife in the comics.

In Payload mode, which team must push the explosive cart along the track?

BLU is the attacking team in Payload and must push the cart into the RED base; the mode arrived with the 2008 Gold Rush Update, which also added the first unlockable weapons.

In TF2's Capture the Flag mode, what object stands in for the flag?

An intelligence briefcase is the flag: each team guards one in a basement room, and the classic map for the mode is 2Fort.

How many control points does a King of the Hill map contain?

One control point sits in the middle of a King of the Hill map; a team wins by holding it until its three-minute timer runs out.

Extremely rare hats with particle effects attached are known as what?

Unusuals are the rarest hat quality, each carrying a particle effect such as Burning Flames; most enter the game by being uncrated and they dominate the trading economy.

What is the name of TF2's yearly Halloween event?

Scream Fortress is the yearly Halloween event; it brings haunted map variants, spell-casting and bosses such as the Horseless Headless Horsemann and the eyeball Monoculus.

Which wizard, along with his book the Bombinomicon, is a recurring antagonist of the Halloween events?

Merasmus is the wizard who debuted as a boss on Ghost Fort in the 2012 Halloween event; the lore makes him the rocket-jumping class's long-suffering roommate.

TF2's cartoon look drew on commercial illustrators including Norman Rockwell and whom?

J. C. Leyendecker, the Saturday Evening Post cover artist, was cited with Dean Cornwell and Norman Rockwell in Valve's 2007 paper on the game's illustrative look.

The original Team Fortress began in 1996 as a free mod for which game?

Quake hosted the original Team Fortress, released in August 1996 by the Australian group TF Software; Valve hired its makers and shipped Team Fortress Classic in 1999.

Under what subtitle was Team Fortress 2 first shown at E3 in 1999?

Brotherhood of Arms was the subtitle on the 1999 E3 showing, a realistic military shooter with commanders and parachute drops that Valve later scrapped for the cartoon style.

Which magazine's annual vaporware list regularly featured Team Fortress 2 during its long silence?

Wired ran the annual Vaporware awards, and Team Fortress 2 placed on the list repeatedly during the eight-year gap between its 1999 showing and its 2007 release.

Which 2009 map introduced the Payload Race mode?

Pipeline debuted on February 24, 2009 as the first Payload Race map, with each team pushing its own cart across three stages.

Which 2016 update added a competitive matchmaking mode?

Meet Your Match launched on July 7, 2016, adding ranked competitive matchmaking and reworking casual play into a matchmaking system.

What hashtag did the community rally behind in a June 3, 2024 protest against the bot problem?

#FixTF2 was the June 3, 2024 campaign against the aimbot bots; an earlier protest used #savetf2 in May 2022, and Valve ran ban waves within weeks of the 2024 push.

The July 2023 update that gave TF2 a record 253,997 players added which community mode?

Versus Saxton Hale, a long-running community mode in which a single player becomes the boss, went official in the July 2023 summer update, which was built largely from community maps and cosmetics.

After voice actor Rick May died in 2020, Valve added what tribute to the game?

A new main menu theme was added in May 2020 as Valve's tribute, alongside temporary statues of the rocket-jumping class May had voiced since launch.

Which 2010 release added a store where items could be bought with real money?

The Mann-Conomy Update of September 30, 2010 opened the Mann Co. Store and introduced trading, laying the groundwork for the free-to-play switch the following year.

Which game engine does Team Fortress 2 run on?

Source is Valve's engine, introduced with Counter-Strike: Source and Half-Life 2 in 2004; Team Fortress 2 has run on it since launch.

Which two developers of the original Team Fortress mod led development of Team Fortress 2 at Valve?

Robin Walker and John Cook, two of the Australians behind the 1996 mod, joined Valve in 1998 and steered Team Fortress 2 through its long development.

How many official maps did Team Fortress 2 ship with at launch?

Six maps shipped at launch, among them 2Fort, Well and Hydro; well over a hundred more have been added since, many of them community-made.

Which Texas town is the Engineer's hometown?

Bee Cave, a small town west of Austin, is the hometown in the official bio, which also credits the class with eleven hard-science PhDs.

The Sniper was born in which country before being raised in the Australian outback?

New Zealand is the birthplace the comics give him; as a baby he was sent to Australia and raised there by adoptive parents, the Mundys.

What is the century-long stalemate between the Mann brothers over New Mexico land called?

The Gravel War is the lore's name for the feud: Redmond and Blutarch kept themselves alive with life-extension machines until their brother Gray murdered them both.

What is the 9v9 competitive format limited to one player per class called?

Highlander is the 9v9 format with a single player of each class per team, its name borrowed from the film's catchphrase; Prolander is its 7v7 spin-off.

Which rendering technique gives TF2 its painterly, illustration-inspired look?

Gooch shading, a warm-to-cool tinting technique, was adapted by Valve and paired with rim lighting to give the game its illustration-like look, per its 2007 rendering paper.

Which four classes does TF2's Training Mode teach to new players?

Soldier, Demoman, Engineer and Spy are the four with training courses; the first course, added in the 2010 Mac Update, uses wooden targets and bots on a dedicated map.