Team Fortress 2‘s last big update came in December, but now, finally, Valve is about to shake things up again. Much like TF2’s biggest inspiration, Blizzard’s Overwatch, Valve’s undying team shooter is adding a competitive mode.
The Meet Your Match update, which will likely launch sometime this week, adds a ranked competitive mode to the game, as well as new quickplay matchmaking with level-ups. There’s no word (yet) on how the latter will affect regular pub matches.
As for competitive mode, Valve explained:
Designed as a new challenge for experienced TF2 players, Competitive Mode lets you rank up, track progress, earn medals and record your accomplishments in a results-based competitive experience.
With Competitive Mode, every win (and every loss) counts. You’ll be competing against opponents of similar skill level in structured and progressive play. Your match-to-match performance will determine how you rank up (or down). And because you’ll be working hard to earn your ranks, we’ll be working hard to protect their value.
Valve also said a bunch of stuff about apes and dolphins, if you’re into that. I know I am.
Competitive mode will double down on the game’s skill-based aspect. This means things like fixed shotgun spreads and no random criticals. The ranks themselves, however, are a far cry from the SRSFACE JAPES NOT ALLOWED attitude often associated with competitive modes:
You won’t just be able to download TF2 and hop into competitive mode. In order to access it, you’ve got to either have your account tied to a phone number and have purchased an item to gain premium account status, OR the phone-less — secluded on a social island bereft of even the most basic amenities like selfies and porn — can purchase a Competitive Access Pass. That will run you $US9.99 ($13), for now.
So, lapsed TF2 players, what do you think? Will this bring you back into the fold?
Comments
7 responses to “Team Fortress 2 Finally Getting Competitive Mode Update”
probably not while i’m playing overwatch 🙁
I’ll try it and see if it grabs me, but I haven’t played in years so I’ll be rusty as hell.
Overwatch is already out so, too late. I might have a go at it but I never liked having less than 20 people on a server.
i stopped playing tf2 after it went f2p. They give you very little if you payed a premium to play it.
“Much like TF2’s biggest inspiration, Blizzard’s Overwatch, Valve’s undying team shooter is adding a competitive mode.” TF2’s biggest inspiration is not a game that was released years after it originally was available and the competitive update has been in the works since long before Overwatch was out. I think you mean “Much like the game that drew inspiration from TF2, Blizzard’s Overwatch…”.
TF2 is a survivor.Time will tell for Overwatch.
So now that Blizzard brought out Overwatch, Valve want’s a slice too huh? Too late in my opinion.
TF2 had good grounds for competitive years ago, but they never bothered to do anything and completely neglected the console versions as well.
I played TF2 back in the vanilla days both on PC and Xbox. Xbox is where the competitive aspect really shone through in my opinion. I used to play with a few mates, and the smaller server sizes really allowed for some heavy teamwork and coordination. PC has always been a bit more ‘chaotic’ with the larger server sizes, but especially so in recent times with all the different weapons.
I love TF2, one of my favourite and most played games – but I don’t think competitive will take off.
I was hugely into TF2 years ago, but releasing competitive now means that they’ve rushed it to try and get into the OW hype, or they’ve been holding out on us for years.