14 DAY TRIAL // Valve has gotten us all in a frenzy with its “Friendship” announcements and its mysterious upcoming update for Team Fortress 2. After it let us bash our heads against a few walls trying to figure out what it was, Valve's Robin Walker had the decency to let us know what it wouldn't be. While announcing that the most popular guess around the net, a new game mode, was the wrong assumption, he advised us to become true detectives and record and document the moments in which the special announcements would be heard during the game. After some proper research, it seemed like the future update would involve in some way the Soldier class, the Demoman and the Engineer.
As Valve revealed two days ago in a very nicely done comic posted on the official Team Fortress 2 blog, the Engineer was a side-story in the update and the main focus would be on the Blue Soldier and the Red Demoman. It seems like there is quite a lot to this update, and the final details that were reveled today will probably win the “Most Brilliant Update” award for the entire century.
The Soldier and the Demoman classes will indeed be updated. They'll both get the new weapons that a lot of the other classes have already gotten, but not only is there more content added, there is also a dramatic twist to this class update. “The War update will reveal three new weapons each for the Demoman and Soldier throughout the week, as well as some maps, achievements, and surprises, right up until the day of release, when everything we've been teasing goes live,” Walker said.
The true plot-maker has also been revealed and the “healthy competition” that the announcer teased us with turns out to be the most brilliant voting method ever devised. “A secret, exclusive seventh weapon has also been developed by the TF2 team. In other words, either the Soldier or the Demo (but NOT both) is walking out of this update with one more weapon than the other,” Walker posted on the official TF2 blog.
“If you want your class to have it, you're going to have to fight for it. The more Demomen you kill as the Soldier class will help ensure the Soldier gets the weapon at the end of the week. The more Soldiers you kill as the Demo will help the Demo class get the exclusive seventh weapon.” With that being said, load up your TF2 client and start hunting down your new-found, mortal enemy. Oh, and if some of you even think about cheating in any way, learn that Valve will not sit by idly. “What if some of you try to cheat to bump the numbers? We'll know,” Walker warned.