Two popular Team Fortress 2 mods have been temporarily taken down due to an "arrangement" with Valve, and fans are frantic with speculation that the classic version of the game is coming back to Steam.
The mods in question are TF2Classic and Open Fortress. The former does what it says on the tin plus the integration of modes and features that were deleted from the earlier versions of the game as well as new bits and bobs. The latter is the work of hundreds of modders that have added new modes, characters, story content and more under the umbrella of the existing Team Fortress 2 universe.
Ergo, these creations are extremely beloved by the community and initially, it's concerning that Valve looks to have come after their efforts. Except, that's not exactly what has happened, not like Take-Two Interactive's reaction to those spiffy Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and Vice City mods.
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Take a note of the wording of the two announcements from the two teams behind the two mods. There's an "arrangement" with Valve that has led to the "temporary" halt to downloads of the creations by the general public. The developers behind TF2Classic and Open Fortress will share more in the future but these statements don't seem to be suggesting that they're in trouble with Valve.
So, it's possible that Valve is interested in closely collaborating with these modders for an upcoming update to Team Fortress 2. Even though the game was released almost 13 years ago, it's still one of the most popular titles on Steam. At the time of writing, it's sitting in the top ten amongst Grand Theft Auto V, Rust, New World, Naraka: Bladepoint and other heavy hitters.
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GladiatorDragon on Reddit has a theory that I think is pretty likely regarding why these mods have only been removed for a limited time. "Implementation to Steam, maybe? Valve definitely has a heck of a lot more respect for mods and modders than most other devs," they said. Watch this space, I suppose.
Featured Image Credit: Valve, NBCUniversal Television Distribution