It has kart racing. Kart racing! With adorable chubby-faced characters. Valve has finally lost it — in a good way, mostly.
The new map, Carnival of Carnage, is the biggest addition in Scream Fortress VI, this year’s Halloween event. Here’s an overview from Valve News Network of its relentless spookitude:
I wasn’t kidding about the bumper karts. I would never kid about bumper karts.
There are also crazy mid-match effects like shrinking and the level filling up with water, over-the-top items like the necro-crusher hammer, and, of course, ghooooooooooosts. There’s a guide to all of that here.
Players are finding all sorts of other weird things nestled beneath the Halloween tree — which, as we all know, is a spectrally gleaming dead pine salted with the ashes of deceased loved ones and wrapped in chains (or, in a pinch, belts from Hot Topic). For instance, there are…
New cosmetic items and effects:
And a bunch of easter eggs and jokes, as catalogued in this handy album:
Unfortunately, it’s not all scrumptious nougat-filled fun. Players have noticed, among other things, that Carnival of Carnage doesn’t play all that differently from Doomsday, the map on which it’s heavily based. Moreover, there are a number of glitches that have popped up, both during the more traditionally TF2-y portions of each match (read: blasting each other into colourful cartoon giblets) and in kart segments. There’s even exploits that trap people behind glass doors and allow karts to fly.
Still, though, it’s at least a shot at something different, even if it doesn’t entirely succeed. That’s pretty neat for a game that, as Luke pointed out, has far outlived anything else even remotely like it. To be honest, TF2 is its own thing, its own ecosystem, removed from the cresting and crashing waves of other multiplayer games. In part that comes from Valve’s dedication to going out on a limb, repeatedly, over the years. Do players always dig what they do? No. But the game is open enough that players can make their own stuff out of whatever Valve adds, so it’s not the end of the world. Team Fortress 2 lumbers on, an eccentric, wizened, confident beast.
Kinda like a Dracula. Or a really smart, probably university-educated mummy. I don’t know. Something something Halloween.
Comments
5 responses to “Team Fortress 2’s New Map Is Totally Bonkers”
No the map isn’t bonkers. Ask any serious tf2 player what they thought of the new event map.
The community has asked for a new boss 2 years straight now, but still no new boss.
Those karts have the worse handling ever made. No joke.
The items are all fairly dull and a new hammer that does nothing and can’t even have spells attached to it is a bad idea.
placing teles behind glass isn’t new, what is new is valves lazyness by not making ereas behind spawn no build zones.
I could rant all day about this.
But that sniper Ostrich thing.
It’s beautiful.
But hey it’s all for free so who cares right?
I care. This game has claimed more cash off me then any other game, i’m not talking thousands of dollars but still more then a series of games. Not only that it has my most hours spent on it and i feel a personal attachment to it. Stupid i know.
@ctrsaltdelete yeah, there are a few nice ones, Mr. Mudies ride being one of them. But they gimped them by making them full moon only, not that bothers me much since i run the halloween command on my server.
Let me tell you a little story about TF2 on the Xbox 360, despite being promised multiple times and despite still having an active player base the game remains un-updated.
Valve have a long and storied history of not giving a flying fuck what it’s customers want
Looks like a freakin’ fun map