Bonk!
Despite fear from my wallet, I decided to jump back into Team Fortress 2 in 2021. That’s nearly five years of sitting uninstalled.
My History With Team Fortress 2
Team Fortress 2 was the first game to ever engross me to a great extent as a late teenager. I played it at around 15 FPS on an absolute piece of junk of a laptop. I loved every second of it.
Back then, I was all about trading in the game’s community at the time and could happily play for hours on end. However, as I grew older, I played the game less and less and grew out of playing it like I once did.
Before quitting Team Fortress 2, I decided to sell all my items on the newly added Steam marketplace. I hadn’t touched the game for probably a year at that time and didn’t have much money. So, the idea of getting steam currency for these items was too good to pass up.
Looking back at it now, of course, I wish I hadn’t done that, but such is life most times. I do not plan to return to Team Fortress 2 like I used to, so I don’t plan on repurchasing any of my Stranges.
The majority of my time was spent in PVP when I played Team Fortress 2, but I was playing actively during the release of Mann VS Machine, and I must say that I loved the game mode. So the idea of jumping back in with some friends is very tempting. But, for this article’s purposes, I will only be playing PVP game modes.
Diving Back in
I was greeted with that beautiful new item notification sound and was immediately filled with nostalgia right off the bat. But, unfortunately, it was just a weapon case, which also filled me with a different, more disappointing, kind of nostalgia.
The new UI was nice to see. It helps to bring the very dated game into modern times. There were even new things to the UI that I found in the matches that were nice to see. Considering the history (Or lack thereof) that Valve has in updating games, it was refreshing to see TF2 in its current state.
Hopping back in, I am going with the casual game mode. However, it is super cool to see a competitive game mode that is its own thing now.
Last One Out, Lock the Door
My go-to class was always soldier. I loved the way he played, and that love only grew after Mann VS Machine came out. So naturally, I hopped into my first game as a soldier with whatever I had equipped from my last play session.
I was instantly taken back to my late teenage years of playing Team Fortress 2, and it was like riding a bike. I remembered my hotkeys to call for medic and spys; it was great.
My first game back gave me some clarity as to why I always love to play the objective game mode in any online game I play. All those years of Team Fortress 2 have instilled a love of that game-mode type.
I have always adored the simplicity of Team Fortress 2. However, I was reminded while playing how easy it is to sit and play the game and hop from game to game and game-mode to game-mode without ever realizing how much time was passing.
In my opinion, the class system was also ahead of its time, as far as being balanced, unique, and fun all around. Every class brings a new element on how to play the game and is a structure that we have seen in modern gaming with tremendous success, but never quite that same charm that Team Fortress 2 had.
Wrapping Up
I wonder if it’s even possible for a game like Team Fortress 2 to be made again, or more specifically a sequel, with the same success and love from the community that Team Fortress 2 had. I fear it may have been a product of its time and something we won’t see again.
While I won’t be actively playing Team Fortress 2 again in the future, it was a lot of fun and a considerable nostalgia blast to boot it up again.
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