In the last article in March, we laid down the road map for changes that need to be implemented to TF2 Classified for a viable competitive gameplay, while documenting the temporary solutions made by CompTF2C in the pre-Steam era. Now in August, CompTF2C and a few of its stubborn members stand as a community actively involved in testing, bug fixing, and pinpointing them for the developers. The following is the progress report of that.

It all started with Xinayder entering the Discord server in May. Him and PuG runner starm0nster started testing different game modes in July to see where the tournament mode Ready Up function and the stopwatch functionality fails. Xinayder didn’t stop there, and went to the public TF2 SDK to understand how it works in live TF2, and from there, estimate how it could have gone wrong in TF2C. This led to a conversation between Güven and the creator of the TF2 Competitive Fixes plugin, twiikuu, who guessed that it could be about the fact that there are four teams defined in TF2C, whereas only two teams are able to ready up via the tournament HUD in a 2team map. That brought to mind what f stated about the initial post-Steam PuGs. A quick search in the Discord DMs reminded us that f indeed reported Ready Up to be functional in 4team maps. This further clue led to twiikuu finding the exact code that goes wrong, which, Xinayder documented properly. On 31 July, the developer team fixed the issue with the release of TF2 Classified update 3.0.12! Another bug reported by Xinayder, concerning Arena and the tournament mode (although may not be vital for the scene) is also fixed with update 3.0.12.
He went further and found bugs possibly hindering tournament HUD for 4team, and again, found where it could go wrong in the TF2 SDK as well.

The developer team behind Team Fortress 2 Classified, EMINOMA, has partnered with the independent TF2C Mapping Community (TF2CMC) -supported and led by the very same host of AltTAB servers- to organize the first official TF2 Classified mapping contest. Following the footsteps of the 2010 art pass competition of TF2, the participants are tasked with taking a de-artpassed version of a map originally created by Waugh101, now renamed arena_competition_template, and using it as a blank canvas to create their own art passed version, under an original name. The winner will have their version hosted on AltTAB Standard and VaultF4 Custom Maps servers for the forseeable future, in addition to receiving supporter perks on both servers.

The contest was announced on TF2CMC Discord server three days ago on July 6, with submission due six weeks later, on August 24. There are already around a dozen submissions on the #artpass-contest-submissions channel of the Discord server, where mapmakers are sharing their work in progress. Themes range from Yukon-like Canadian environment to industrial harbor. The map is relatively compact, so there is still plenty of time for mappers to join the contest and present their own vision of what the level could become. Even if you are not a mapper, the TF2CMC Discord is a great place to admire these new creations and join the weekly playtests with a community of creative individuals.

Note that, just two days before the contest was announced, TF2 Classified released its Modding Tools–a small but thoughtful gift to mappers and modders alike.

Thanks to the release of these tools on Steam, it’s now easier than ever to get started using Hammer for TF2C. Eminoma’s provided guides and example VMFs are perfect for learning TF2C’s style, and this contest is a great opportunity to have a go yourself. – Jaws, TF2CMC Lead and AltTAB Owner

We have witnessed the breakthrough of Steam-released TF2 “Classified” (first time we call that name here) on January 31, 2026 together with the rest of the world, where its number of concurrent online players peaked at almost ten thousand. More than a month passed, and there is still a steady number of about one thousand that plays TF2C any time of the day. Technically, our game is now based on the inherited live TF2 code. An immediate consequence of it is working tournament HUD for some of the game modes, and A/D (or PL) stopwatch for some other, as was prophesied. We are closer than ever to get rid of the need for the manual entries of mp_tournament_restart and mp_restartgame X to start a match, the presence of an admin in the server, or dependency on an SM plugin (efforts of rainwyre and Jaws) to count the time. (Yes, we know it sounds puzzling for the live TF2 folk who had a fully functional tournament mode since 2008.)

Of course, we are still missing out on a seamless experience on any game mode. Nevertheless, it is the beginning of a new era for competitive TF2C where all the ugly workarounds can be made native to the game. Commands PuG runners are trained for, configs made by carefully picking the not-server-crashing cvars from ETF2L‘s (special thanks to them), custom SM plugin for proper VIP-assignment (by Jaws), another custom stopwatch-like SM plugin as mentioned above, VIPR-specific scripts using Stripper SM plugin (with help from Dynamilk), vscript to regulate the respawn behaviour of Territorial Domination at round-starts (a short code by Güven)… all are now archived in our old Tech Manual page. Thanks to these old warhorses, and to anyone who contributed and played, CompTF2C managed to organize various events and competitions throughout 2025.

While TF2C competitive community keeps organizing pick-up games regularly on its Discord server, the development team EMINOMA is still working hard to make sure the game is running smooth for everyone. After that, there will likely be a time for when they finally roll up their sleeves to improve competitive. The rest of this article lists what TF2 Classified will need when that time comes.

TFC visiting FF visiting PF2 visiting TFC visiting PF2 visiting FF visiting TFC in return.

Three Fortress titles making up one of the closest related kinship within the realm of Fortress games are visiting, and being visited by, each others’ communities on three game nights over a week’s duration, in the 30^th year of the Team Fortress saga. This is as much of a collaboration to amplify the fun as it is a competition to prove their mastery over the others. How well a Team Fortress Classicer performs in Source engine? What about the Fortress Forever folk in GoldSrc? Can the usual Pre-Fortress 2 enjoyer pull off bunny hopping? All of this and more will be answered during the Classic Revival Week!

Fortress Forever Night ♾️
🗓️February 25^th Wednesday, 21:00 CET (20:00 UTC)
🔗Atlantia Vanilla Server #1 | 164.132.202.176:27012
Backup server: Atlantia Vanilla Server #2 | 164.132.202.176:27013
📣Discord server (Official community)

Team Fortress Classic Night 🪖
🗓️February 28^th Saturday, 22:00 CET (21:00 UTC)
🔗Royston Vasey | tfc.roystonvasey.org.uk or 51.195.252.162:27015
Backup server: [APG] Battle Fortress | 54.36.177.240:27020
📣Discord server (Royston Vasey)

Pre-Fortress 2 Night 💀
🗓️March 4^th Wednesday, 21:00 CET (20:00 UTC)
🔗[EU] FortressWorld | 57.129.123.44:27015
Backup server: [US-EAST] FortressWorld Backup | 108.175.8.158:27017
📣Discord server (Official community)

On February 18 this year, Valve released an update to Source SDK Base, making the current Team Fortress 2 code publicly available. The community which has been creating its own TF2 content for nearly two decades can now make its own TF2 games (complete with Steam release). The possibilities are limitless, fitting to the tradition of the Fortress saga which started as a mod (of Quake) itself almost 30 years ago.

Major TF2 mods such as TF2 Classic and Pre-Fortress 2 that already existed off-Steam are preparing for their Steam releases * while the competitive community of TF2C has already kicked off its organization, CompTF2C, on whose soil this article is planted. These mods base their identities to the early (even pre-alpha) versions of TF2, they are searching for their places in the realm of Fortress games, and competitive TF2C is still figuring out its meta, the most viable game modes and the rules. There could be no better time to remember the early years of live TF2’s competitive scene, which were also full of chances, exploration, and innovation.

It has been five years since teamfortress.tv’s massive effort to review the previous decade of competitive TF2 (2010-2019), chronicling the era and its legacy.

This article aims to take it from its beginnings (2007-2009), with insights from a bird’s-eye view, then to the narrative of the period that followed after (2009-2011) with a depiction of its atmosphere and mentions of its milestones.