Image: Valve
Team Fortress 2 might have just silently announced its end of live-service development.
Valve has officially released the full client and server code for its seminal first-person shooter Team Fortress 2 online. Fans of the game are encouraged to “change, extend or rewrite” Team Fortress 2 and come up with fanmade games of their own. Theoretically, this means that fans now have the power to come up with Team Fortress-inspired games by themselves.
Valve releases Team Fortress 2 source code to the public
Games giant Valve might be winding down development on Team Fortress 2 for good. The developer of Portal 2, Half-Life: Alyx, and occasionally, Dota 2, has released a huge update to the Source Software Development Kit.
The update has made Team Fortress 2’s source code fully available for fans and creators, allowing them to make “anything from small tweaks to complete conversions possible” in the game’s code. As Valve puts it:
We've just released a massive update to the Source SDK, adding all the Team Fortress 2 client and server game code. This update will allow content creators to build completely new games based on TF2 [...] Unlike the Steam Workshop or local content mods, this SDK gives mod makers the ability to change, extend or rewrite TF2, making anything from small tweaks to complete conversions possible.
You, too, can create your own Team Fortress 2 (or dare I say, 3?), but there is one important caveat to keep in mind. Any mod created using this SDK must be free for all to download and use, including the contents within said mod. As long as they’re free and available on a strictly non-commercial basis, they can even be published on the Steam Store as all-new video games.
Team Fortress 2’s development has been in the hands of players for a very long time now, as the now 18-year-old game continues to thrive with its own dedicated community of players. From custom maps to game mods, it’s the fans who have arguably kept this game going for so long - albeit with the occasional update from Valve itself.
From the looks of it, this handover is now all but complete, and Valve is free to move on from Team Fortress 2 once and for all. It has enough on its own plate to worry about, with a potential Steam Deck successor looming and a brand-new MOBA shooter called Deadlock in development. There is also the long-rumoured development of a new Half-Life game keeping its developers busy behind closed doors, too.
Valve also announced that it’s doing “a big update” to all of its back-catalogue Source engine-made multiplayer games, adding “64-bit binary support, a scalable HUD/UI, prediction fixes, and a lot of other improvements!” Read more on the update here.
