Excellent throwback mod Team Fortress 2 Classic is coming to Steam later this year

A yellow engineer standing in front of stacked pipes in Team Fortress 2 Classic

(Image credit: Valve/Eminoma)

It's been a big week for Team Fortress 2's modding community (well, specifically a big eight days, but let's call it a week for convenience). Last Tuesday, Valve finally released The Team Fortress 2 SDK, updating the Source SDK with all the netcode gubbins from its 2007 shooter, thereby enabling players to "build completely new games based on TF2." Now, one of the best existing Team Fortress 2 mods is formally coming to Steam, making it easier to play than ever.

Team Fortress 2 Classic is a professional-grade mod that reimagines the shooter's early years, before the hats and the bots. Commencing in 2014, it initially released in 2020 in non-vapourous form, and has been consistently updated since. Developer Eminoma announced the move to Steam in a short, daft Steam update: "'Steam' is a mysterious resource created when coal is burned in certain situations — a harrowing thought to coal-lovers like the civilian, to whom burning coal is like setting one's own children on fire. But maybe a foray into the Steam industry is just what the company needs to capture new eyes."

As well as these "new-old" features—ideas inspired by or excavated from Team Fortress' past—TF2 Classic also adds "new-new" features, including weapons like flak cannons and "chains wrapped around your fists" as well as custom modes like VIP Race, where each team gets a civilian who must capture control points in enemy territory. It's basically an alternate history for Team Fortress 2, imagining a more traditional update path for Valve's shooter.

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Rick has been fascinated by PC gaming since he was seven years old, when he used to sneak into his dad's home office for covert sessions of Doom. He grew up on a diet of similarly unsuitable games, with favourites including Quake, Thief, Half-Life and Deus Ex. Between 2013 and 2022, Rick was games editor of Custom PC magazine and associated website bit-tech.net. But he's always kept one foot in freelance games journalism, writing for publications like Edge, Eurogamer, the Guardian and, naturally, PC Gamer. While he'll play anything that can be controlled with a keyboard and mouse, he has a particular passion for first-person shooters and immersive sims.

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