Ever wanted to get into competitive TF2? Now's your chance! The European Team Fortress 2 League is running the Fresh Meat Cup sponsored by Scrap.tf and Marketplace.tf.

This competition is aimed at new, inexperienced players interested in playing competitive TF2. So if you're fresh meat, sign up before April 6th to compete. Every team can play with an experienced mentor to help them understand meta and play their best! Visit the ETF2L website for more info.

We're proud to announce that the master of imps, @Void has been brought on officially as a staff member here at TF2Maps! Void has been running a ton of tests for us, and has more than proven his dedication to TF2, TF2Maps, and content creation in general. Void has been a long time member of the TF2 community, and has had his hands in all sorts of our history. From the Construction Pack, to Frontline! We look forward to having him be officially part of the team!

In...

New staff! And a promotion!

An update to Team Fortress 2 has been released. The update will be applied automatically when you restart Team Fortress 2. The major changes include:

• Internal updates to support future development

Did you know that TF2 is releasing a soundtrack of all its pulse-pounding, brain-exploding, bowel-evacuating songs to kill people to? Well now you do! Ipecac Recordings is releasing our best (and only) soundtrack, complete with 29 songs, new images, and a ton of easter eggs. Preorder the CD and LP today! Or preorder digitally at iTunes and Amazon.

TFCL is announcing their second season of Ultiduo! This time they're boasting a bigger and better prize pool, participation medals, TFTV casting and more!

The first match is scheduled for March 25th. This season will be comprised of 8 regular matches, for a total length of 4 weeks. There will also be a special weekend playoff event on April 22nd and 23rd. Registration is open now! For instructions on how to register and more info, check out their annoucement page here.

Rally Call is a series of video game charity events that help different charities each year. This February 25th and 26th, Rally Call will be hosting a TF2 Tournament featuring YouTubers, steamers and other TF2 personalities. This event will support International Animal Rescue, a foundation that helps animals in danger all over the world. Click here to donate and learn more.

Another jam is over, and the TF community really turned this one out! The final count of entries was 686, which includes 230 SFM creations, 196 artworks, 146 maps, 34 models, 14 videos, 12 fanfictions, 2 games, 2 plushes, and a poem. Check them out and learn more here.

Hey everyone, we just wanted to drop you a line about a situation currently developing. For the past few weeks, our good friend and fellow staff member here at TF2Maps @Freyja has been fighting a rather serious medical illness. She has been diagnosed with Lymphoma, a rather not uncommon, but aggressive form of cancer. A tumor has very quickly grown on her spine and has caused near complete paralysis from the waist down.

Luckily, her doctors say this is a very treatable...

Freyja

An update to Team Fortress 2 has been released. The update will be applied automatically when you restart Team Fortress 2. The major changes include:

• Improved Steam Voice support for servers that have enabled it
  • Removed sv_use_steam_voice convar. Steam voice is now selected via "sv_voicecodec steam"
  • Fixed demos not properly recording Steam Voice status, resulting in potential corrupt voice in demos with differing default settings
  • Will now use the native Steam Voice sampling rate, instead of clamping to 11kHz
  • Improved compatibility with Steam client beta
• Fixed OS X voice communication sounding high-pitched when using the default CELT voice codec
• Fixed an animation bug that would cause the client and server hitboxes to become out of sync
• Fixed the Scout not playing the correct animation when using the Shortstop's Alt-Fire to shove someone
• Fixed some missing VO sounds for the Scout when he picks up a baseball
• Fixed Spectators seeing the fake death notices for the Spy when he feigns death
• Fixed the Widowmaker not doing increased damage when the Sentry's target is a building, boss, or tank
• Fixed not earning Crikey meter progress with The Cleaner's Carbine when damaging a building, boss, or tank
• Fixed the Scout not getting assists for shoving players while using the Shortstop
• Fixed not being able to use non-tradable Giftapults
• Fixed powerups sometimes being removed from the game in Mannpower mode
• Fixed a case where the scoreboard would not update properly when players volunteer to switch teams in Casual mode
• Fixed a case where Casual servers would spontaneously terminate with "Server shutting down" upon losing connection with the matchmaking service
• Updated the logic used to pick the maps players can vote on in the end-of-match map vote on Casual servers to help maintain healthier game mode representation across regions
  • Casual servers were often rotating to unrelated game modes during votes, resulting in partially filled servers in certain regions
• Updated the player_bodygroups that are hidden when equipping The Dark Falkirk Helm and The Sole Saviors
• Updated the model/materials for The Snowmann to fix some LOD issues
• Updated the localization files
• Added Gift Wrap back to the Mann Co. Store at a reduced price
• Added TF2Maps 72hr TF2Jam Winter Participant 2017 community medal
• Added Rally Call Charity Tournament community medals
• Added ozfortress Season 18 tournament medals
• Added new survey questions to the end-of-match survey for Casual and Competitive modes and fixed a bug where multiple surveys could be displayed at the same time