Official announcement for the TF2 SDK: https://www.teamfortress.com/post.php?id=238809
This is great, but also WEIRD because Valve have historically gone after TF2 fan projects in the past few years. I guess they just changed their minds?
this post was submitted on 18 Feb 2025
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Just because the source code is available it does not mean it is free to use and do with it what you want. The license explicitly states that you may use it but have to publish it for free and follow the Steam subscriber agreement. Also this is just source code, not the assets (at least as far as I understand it).
Valve has made attempts to take down projects that follow those rules. TF2Classic is the example that comes to my mind since it's the main one I've played, but I know there are several others. In TF2C's case, they tried contacting Valve to find out why they'd been hit with a C&D, never heard back, and eventually quietly resumed development.
Some kind of miscommunication between legal and the devs? Maybe internal drama? Maybe they didn't really pay attention and still aren't aware TF2C is back up? Who knows. Still happened tho.
I don't doubt that this happened. All I wanted to point out is, that this move doesn't conflict in any way with such things happening.
Damn, Valve going against fan projects is really weird. Especially considering that most of their biggest games are former mods. And they let just about anyone do something in the Half Life universe.
Its worth noting that all of those fan projects were based off of an old leak of the source code. Shutting them down makes sense and honestly it was weirder that it didn't happen sooner.
Either way releasing this SDK gives the modders a brand new much more updated set of tools to make the mods all over again but this time they could even release on steam instead of just being some sort of semi-illegal back alley deal
Not that weird when you realize they are giving out an alternative to their game filled with microtransactions
Or maybe they took fan projects down because they had this in the works.
Remember that this does not include the source engine which is still closed source, good for modding but you won't be able to do crazy ports or anything anytime soon.
Hopefully we'll have a TF2 Classic version soon without all the stupid random items and with a focus on dedicated server communities.
That has been a dream of mine for well over a decade. When I (rarely) play TF2 it's with bots only, since they have all the vanilla stuff.
I miss the times when an entire team would do a Scout rush, with only the 3 vanilla weapons, just for the hell of it. It was always complete chaos. You can do it with bots, but it's very tedious, and they only run along the ground from node to node. Give me a dozen Scouts flying off the rooftops spamming x5x5x5x5!
Also, does anyone else wish someone would bring back his crazy legs when he does the midair jump?
Check out tf2 classic~
Man I’d love to host a TF2 server
This is just awesome. Though it is weird because they went after that open source tf2 remake a few years ago, maybe the team will continue now.
This is the first I'm hearing of that, but I would assume any project would get sued if they copied any art assets, songs, and trademarks (logos, characters, etc). And at the time, any code they used would be suspect because of the TF2 source leak.
Obligatory IANAL.
Being able to download Team Fortress mods similar to Portal and Half Life would be epic.
Cool but Gold Source is best Source