50 Fun Facts About Team Fortress 2

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

The same box shipped Half-Life 2, both Episodes and a little puzzle game called Portal.

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

The compilation launched on October 10, 2007, and later reached PlayStation 3, Mac and Linux.

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

Their rivals BLU are Builders League United; both are fronts run by the feuding Mann brothers.

What does BLU stand for?

The two companies were founded by identical twins Redmond and Blutarch Mann.

How many playable classes does Team Fortress 2 have?

Players pick a class after joining either RED or BLU.

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

His default kit is a scattergun, a pistol and a baseball bat.

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

The jingoistic Midwesterner carries a rocket launcher, a shotgun and a shovel by default.

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

The character is described as a pyromaniac of unknown gender and origin, hidden inside a fire-retardant suit.

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

He also carries a grenade launcher and, canonically, a drinking problem.

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

The large Russian's other default weapons are a shotgun and his fists, and he stars in the first Meet the Team short.

Which class deploys sentry guns, dispensers and teleporters?

The 'good ol' boy' from Bee Cave, Texas, uses his wrench both to fight and to repair his buildings.

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

Filling it grants a few seconds of temporary invulnerability to the healer and target.

Which class is a German doctor from Stuttgart with little regard for the Hippocratic Oath?

His default loadout is a syringe gun, the Medi Gun and a bonesaw.

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

The marksman was born in New Zealand and 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 French operative's butterfly knife instantly finishes an enemy stabbed from behind.

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

She is also the voice of GLaDOS in another game that shipped in the very same box.

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

Burch is also known for Chloe in Life Is Strange and Aloy in Horizon Zero Dawn.

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

The Mann-Conomy Update of 2010 had already added a real-money store, which made the switch possible.

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

The series began in May 2007 with the Heavy and ended on June 27, 2012.

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

Valve released it early in response.

The 2014 TF2 short 'Expiration Date' followed which promotional series?

It was released as a lead-in to that year's Love and War update, which added taunts and the bread monsters.

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

The robot army belongs to Gray Mann, the third Mann brother.

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

The company sells the game's weapons and hats and stars in the comics.

Redmond and Blutarch, the identical-twin founders of RED and BLU, share which surname?

Their brother Gray later emerges as a third competitor after doing away with the pair.

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

The mode arrived with the 2008 Gold Rush update, the first to add unlockable weapons.

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

The classic map for it is 2Fort, itself a remake of a Quake-era Team Fortress level.

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

It sits in the middle of the map, and a team wins by holding it until its timer runs out.

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

They can only be obtained by opening crates or trading with other players.

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

Its recurring bosses include the wizard Merasmus, the Horseless Headless Horsemann and the eyeball Monoculus.

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

In the lore he is also the Soldier's long-suffering roommate.

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

Dean Cornwell was the third named influence, all wrapped in a 1960s spy-film aesthetic.

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

It was built by the Australian team TF Software; Valve later ported it as Team Fortress Classic in 1999.

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

Valve then went six years without releasing information, and the game became a regular on Wired's vaporware list.

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

The finished game abandoned the realistic military look of the 1999 demo entirely.

Since which year has Valve been unable to patch the Xbox 360 version of TF2?

The console versions never got the free-to-play switch or the hat economy.

Which 2016 update added a competitive matchmaking mode?

It launched on July 7, 2016, and also reworked casual play into a matchmaking system.

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

An earlier 'peaceful protest' used #savetf2 in May 2022; ban waves followed within weeks of the 2024 push.

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

The update was largely built from community maps and cosmetics.

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

May had voiced the rocket-jumping patriot since the game's launch.

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

It laid the groundwork for the trading economy and the free-to-play switch the following year.

Which game engine does Team Fortress 2 run on?

The same engine powered Half-Life 2 and Portal, its Orange Box stablemates.

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

The Australian pair were hired by Valve in 1998, just after Half-Life shipped.

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

More than a hundred have been added since, many of them community-made.

Which Texas town is the Engineer's hometown?

He carries two PDAs, one to build and one to remotely destroy his own structures.

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

Besides his rifle he carries a submachine gun and a kukri for close work.

What is the name of the utopian fantasy world the deluded Pyro believes they live in?

The Pyro's gender and origin are unknown; Dennis Bateman voices both the Pyro and the Spy.

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

Both Redmond and Blutarch used immortality machines to outlive each other until their brother Gray murdered them.

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

Prolander is a 7v7 spin-off that lets teams switch classes strategically.

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

The style draws on Leyendecker, Dean Cornwell and Norman Rockwell, paired with what the developers called a 1960s spy-film aesthetic.

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

It uses wooden dummies and bots to walk through the basic mechanics.