Summer 2026 Update | Team Comtress 2

QUALITY OF LIFE

EVERY GAME JUST GOT A LITTLE BETTER

POWER AND CONTROL

Take control of your client with countless improvements to settings and customization, including UI updates for keybinds, crosshairs and graphics quality.

NEW KEYBINDS UI

The keybinds menu has a cleaner layout and better organization to help you find what you need faster, whether you're searching by name or raw command for advanced users. And we've finally added the ability to bind an action to multiple keys!

IN-GAME GRAPHICS PREVIEW

Get a good look of what your settings are actually changing with the new graphics preview option. Toggle between the full settings menu and mini-menu to preview your changes in real-time.

NEW CROSSHAIR SETTINGS

Preview your crosshair in multiple contexts and use new advanced customizations like the new crosshair gap. And with more crosshairs on the way, you'll be able to get the perfect crosshair for you.

COMMUNICATION AND CLARITY

Better ways to read the game state and coordinate with your team.

OUTLINE OCCLUSION

Outlines now render only when players are obscured behind solid obstacles, reducing clutter and improving readability. Plus, disguised Spies can stay undercover.

OUTLINE HEALTH OVERHEAL

Tell a bit easier who's topped off with healing with the new overheal support on the healthbars above outlined teammates.

HUD COUNTDOWN CLOCKS

We've brought the clocks back! Rejoice in using the team status HUD without minmode being forced on for the timers at the top, improving readability and design.

COMMUNICATION WHEEL [BETA]

A new, fully customizable radial menu! The voice menu has gotten a makeover to be easier to use and customize, and we've added options to make sure your muscle memory doesn't go away.

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HDR & BLOOM REVAMP

Bloom and HDR use a new algorithm that's faster yet more accurate, without causing overblown highlights that make things hard to see.

Updated Chat Font

The chat font has been updated for better readability, character support and matching style.

CLASS CHANGES

Here are some highlights of some gameplay changes and fixes, showing our commitment to improving the gameplay experience for all players.

PYRO FLAMES

We've tuned up the heat system from our last update, and it's now more accurate at evaluating the damage of small puffs vs. larger clumps of stale fire.

DEMOKNIGHT CHARGING

Reworked Demoknight turning controls to yield predictable and controllable charges, no matter your FPS.

HEAVY OVERHEALS

After 9 years in development, we've finally managed to make the Dalokohs bar and Gloves of Running Urgently interact properly.

ENGINEER ODDITIES

Wrangler and Short Circuit alt-fire no longer triggers building pickups in close range.

Pyro

HEAT SYSTEM: Flames now more accurately distinguish between dense clumps of fire and stray particles, scaling down by their heat over time as they become stale.
- We weren't entirely satisfied with the accuracy rework from our last update, though it was an improvement, it did not measure flame damage as accurately as possible and thus wasn't as strict about keeping flames on a target as we had hoped. This new system should alleviate those concerns, rewarding aim while still keeping the identity of the Flame Thrower unique.
- Updated the heat density/accuracy mechanic to take into consideration stale/lingering flames properly. Clusters of flames do different damage compared to smaller single flame puffs, according to the cumulative age/heat of the whole group rather than the newest flame, while still appropriately rewarding tracking even at long range.
- Fixed flames colliding with enemies twice every tick
- Fixed an exploit that allowed users to maintain full accuracy by puffing short bursts of the Flamethrower
- Fixed alignment with tickrate that was causing inconsistent application of damage
Fixed some last few airblast reflection issues
- Fixed reflected Dragon's Fury projectiles not retaining their attributes for afterburn, etc.
- Fixed reflecting the rocket jumper not retaining the special rocket trail
- Fixed some reflected projectiles not retaining their custom color attributes
Fixed projectiles blocking line of sight checks
- Most notably, this fixes issues where a projectile could block airblast reflects
- Example 1: not being able to push a stack of Stickybombs with airblast
- Example 2: not being able to deflect an enemy projectile due to a friendly Medic syringe in the way

Demoman

Charge Turn Control: Reworked Demoknight turn control
- Camera is now fully responsive to input, but horizontal turning is limited to a cone centered around the charge direction
- Charge direction will now smoothly track your current viewing direction, according to turn rate
- This fixes issues with frame rate dependence, some exploits, and other usability issues
- The Tide Turner now has true full turn control
Scottish Resistance: Added crosshair overlay with detonation ring to make targeting functionality more clear, and improved targeting
- The Scottish Resistance detonation ring is designed to make trap detonation more consistent at all ranges
- The Scottish Resistance now has an outer detonation ring to help with trimming off bombs from traps
- Close distance bombs will no longer detonate if you are not in the air (to make the stickyjumping check less surprising)
ULLAPOOL CABER: Added a taunt-kill to the Ullapool Caber

Heavy

Reworked how max health modifications are calculated (e.g. Gloves of Running Urgently, Dalokohs Bar)
- Reductions in max health preserve health percentage. For example, if you are at 50% health (150 HP / 300 max HP), reducing max health will retain the same health percentage of 50% (50 HP / 100 max HP). This also includes when max health is restored from a reduction (for example coming from 50 HP / 100 max HP back up to 150 HP / 300 max HP).
- Increases in max health preserve flat health difference. For example, if you are at 299 HP / 300 HP, and a buff increases your max health to 350, your HP will be 349.
Dalokohs Bar / Fishcake:
- Restored overhealing from before the October 23, 2017 exploit workaround
- Now applies healing according to current max health + 50, rather than based upon a fixed max health value
- Due to changes in max health modifications, overhealing will always reach max HP + 50 rather than max HP + 25 on the first use, which required a second use to gain the full effect

Engineer

The Wrangler: Fixed various issues and bugs
- Fixed Wrangler laser showing when the Sentry could not fire, which sometimes caused a frozen-in-place/misplaced laser
- Fixed Wrangler shield not applying consistently during construction/upgrading
- Fixed being able to shoot rockets while a Level 3 Sentry is still upgrading
- Fixed picking up buildings rather than shooting rockets while looking at a building when the Wrangler is out
- Fixed the Wrangler delaying a bullet or rocket shot until after an upgrade/construction, when the input is not held anymore
- Fixed Sentry Gun ammo not refilling properly when close to full and shielded by the Wrangler
- Fixed some inconsistencies between laser pointer and shield
Hauled buildings will no longer destruct when changing loadouts/respawning
Fixed Short Circuit secondary fire picking up buildings

Medic

Fixed Medic injured teammates display and MEDIC! bubbles not using disguise health for enemy Spies

Sniper

Fixed scope mouse sensitivity: Mouse sensitivity is now 1:1 consistently upon zoom in
- zoom_sensitivity_ratio 1 will correspond to true 1:1 mouse input, rather than being projected incorrectly. Also, this fix is superior to various community setting fixes which aim to provide a 1:1 mouse sensitivity at center, so please revert back to the default if this was your intention.
- The old behavior can be used with zoom_sensitivity_scaling 0

Spy

BACKSTAB DETECTION: Fixed various issues with backstab hit detection
- Fixed an issue where facestab prevention was not working properly
- Fixed an issue where over/under stabs were not working properly
- Fixed an issue where lag compensation could fail at extremely close distances

Added keybindings menu to the modern Settings menu
- Improved naming of a few keybinds for Team Fortress 2 and modern expectations. For example, “Duck” is now called “Duck / Crouch”.
- Added category filtering and search to keybindings
- Command associated with the bind is now shown for discovery and search purposes
- Enhanced user flow for rebinding keys
- Remove irrelevant / unused keybinding options
Added “Condensed View” to Graphics Quality menu. Now you can easily preview graphics settings changes while in-game through a minimal translucent menu.
Added crosshair preview. Supports previewing crosshair type, scale, color and gap
Added Outlines section in General to customize outlines settings
Added “custom wav” option in hitsounds/killsounds to reduce confusion
Added zoom sensitivity ratio to mouse settings
Finding settings through search now highlights and scrolls to the setting found for better navigation
Added descriptions/tooltips to all settings
Fixed a few settings bugs:
- HTML MOTD setting removed as it is no longer available
- Fixed Remember Previous Weapon between lives not working
- Fixed maximum value on Medic Auto caller option being too high
- Fixed unknown settings values being blank
- Fixed select options box not showing properly if it was at the bottom with no room
- Fixed misalignment on checkbox settings
Added icons for the various sections
Added option to disable featured class, falling back to the classic class images
Added confirmation prompt when binding to a key that is already used by another action
Added voice receive volume to Communication > Voice instead of it just being in volume settings
Added option to enable chat notification sound
Labeled Beepo as default hitsound and killsound

New Communication Wheel

Added radial menu for voice menu (Z, X, C by default) as a beta quality feature
- Can use number keys as before to select an option, or hold the button and drag the mouse to select an option
- Can use tf_radial_voicemenu_concise 1 to split up the voice menu options into groups of 4 (rather than needing to reach all the way for 9)
- The radial menu is fully customizable, allowing for various communication bubbles, message text templates and the classic voice commands.
- Customization and additional options are not implemented at this time, and we are only using the classic voice commands
- Radial menu options can be conditional, for example PASS Time specific options or Medic specific options

Casual Matchmaking Update

Reduced the match timer from 35 to 25 minutes
Fixed not being able to kick players on the MOTD screen with match assigned teams
Adjusted team shuffle algorithm:
- Player score discrepancy will now adjust based on Team Series Score, in order to better detect situations where a team runs away with the lead in terms of game state/objectives
- Bot difficulty will now adjust a skill curve to further compensate for team balance in situations where shuffling human players is not sufficient. This prioritizes making the losing team’s bots stronger, and then falls back to making the dominant team’s bots weaker.
Random crits now reset back to on after each match (as was done initially). This better ensures we don’t linger past user preferences when a new match starts.
Changed the number of bots that fill in for players for Casual play to 75% of a full lobby (a 9v9 for 24 player servers)
Fixed flag announcements playing during match summary (e.g., flag returned)
Fixed the team that won the series not being used for MVP at the end of a match
Fixed some MVP stats being set to 0 rather than the correct value
Fixed first player not spawning in the correct spawn in matchmaking games
Fixed players not being respawned when a new series falls back to waiting for players

Outlines Revamp

Reworked outline rendering to fix various issues and improve performance
- Loosely based upon work from PazerOP (thank you!)
Fixed outlines disappearing when a player was ubered or had another forced material override
Fixed outline color not correctly inputting into HDR / tonemapping
Added support for outlines for only parts of an object visible, or only behind a surface
Changed the display rules of some outlines based upon this new system:
- Spawn/spectator outlines no longer draw an outline when visible
- Dropped weapons now reliably draw only when visible
- Sticky Bombs (except for the Scottish Resistance) no longer draw an outline when visible
- MvM Tanks no longer draw an outline when visible

HDR / Bloom Update

Reworked how HDR lighting and colors are computed. Visibility should be improved, unnatural bright and dark spots eliminated, and colors should have improved range and contrast.
Reworked how bloom is computed. The fidelity and relevance of the bloom should be improved, and performance impact of bloom decreased.
Improved performance of post processing

General Changes

Switched to Team Comtress item servers, which improve loadout switch times by proxying the Valve SDK item servers. No more rate limiting by the base SDK!
Fixed mini-crit and crit effects not being applied properly in certain cases
Fixed weapons that reload their clip one by one getting their reload cancelled upon pressing right click
- For example, reloads cancelling for the Stickybomb Launcher and Grenade Launcher when detonating Stickybombs
Damage now always rounds up, for both buildings and players. This ensures consistency, proper calculation of damage after resistances, and fixes some bugs with on-death effects.
Fixed buildings reporting 0 health when they were initializing construction
Fixed buildings under construction not receiving lethal damage if the damage was just enough to reduce their health to 0
Fixed BLU team being immune to Sentry Gun knockback on non-MvM maps with upgrades like Freaky Fair
Fixed Medic caller / auto-caller lingering or appearing in incorrect cases
Fixed being able to use respawn key bind (default F) during humiliation
Fixed an issue where game FPS would be reduced when exiting a server connection screen or closing a kick/disconnect message
Fixed a bug where in-game/menu FPS limits could be desynced from the main menu settings
Added tc2_intel.bat as a workaround for systems with Intel cards to launch without the launcher
Removed devonly from some Demoknight charge cvars, per request
Added multiplayer / dedicated server support to Training Mode
Added support for custom votes for community servers
Added datagram support for Remote Console (rcon)
- Allows server owners to control and manage their server easily when hosted on Steam Networking
Updated the localization files
Fixed some projectiles not attributing their damage correctly
Fixed the Red Tape Recorder not attributing destruction of buildings after total deconstruction to the owner in some cases

HUD Changes

Made the crosshair gap 4 by default, to allow for crosshairs to display correctly by default
Changed chat font from SN Pro to Nunito for better character support
Updated colors for overheal bars on the team status HUD
Updated outlines health bar to show overheal
Restored the non-minmode status HUD to the match HUD
The round counter no longer displays if the goal is not round-based

HUD Fixes

Improved the performance and responsiveness of the new main menu UI, especially on 4K resolutions / HiDPI
Fixed an issue where the mouse would be misaligned on the new main menu UI
Fixed gap being players in the scoreboard list being too large, causing them not to fit as expected
Fixed various timers having a desynced clock with the time left timer
Fixed positioning issues with non match HUD minmode
Fixed the map time not displaying on maps without a round timer
Map timer on maps without a round timer will now disappear when the timer hits 0
Fixed match timer progressing during pre-match wait period (it would reset after the match started, but it was confusing to see this in the scoreboard)
Fixed some timers using 0x:xx format instead of x:xx
Fixed sizing/spacing issues on round indicators
Fixed clipped off backgrounds for player status HUD and ammo HUD when using min-mode
Fixed stat panel on freezecam not hiding during screenshot
Fixed votes having a slightly random duration (thanks horiuchii!)
Fixed kick target info on vote HUD panel not working properly (thanks horiuchii!)
Fixed user not being informed properly when Team Fortress 2 is not installed
Fixed pickup prompt showing on buildings when the Engineer could not pick up the building in some cases
Fixed killstreak banner not being positioned and sized correctly
Fixed killstreak banner missing icon
Fixed chat notification sound not playing when enabled (cl_hud_chat_notification 1)
Fixed chat not being visible during match doors display
Fixed player model clipping through match doors
Fixed series intermission causing various HUD elements to disappear if you were dead during the intermission
Fixed series intermission not displaying properly when the match timer reaches 0
Fixed series intermission breaking the spectator HUD for players on the spectator team
Fixed series intermission being extremely long if SourceTV was enabled
Fixed servers not on your game version showing in the new server browser

Visual/Audio Fixes

Fixed weapons being invisible on players that were spectating you
Fixed airblast effect infinitely repeating upon tapping inputs
Fixed B.A.S.E Jumper and Soldier Banners showing their deployed model in a random part of a map in some cases
Fixed ragdolls and cosmetic gibs originating from an incorrect location in some cases, like when the entity source was not visible to the client
Fixed bullet tracers originating from an incorrect location in some cases, like when the entity source was not visible to the client
Fixed an issue where the Demoman Shield viewmodel would not render correctly
Fixed cases of camera clipping into nearby surfaces, especially while teleporting
Fixed viewmodels not properly scaling their viewmodel FOV while zooming, causing flipping or other graphical glitches
Fixed an issue with some All Class items not being accessed properly
Fixed bullet tracers not alternating between barrels on Level 2 and 3 Sentry Guns (thanks ficool2!)
Fixed headshot effects showing on disguised enemy Spies
Fixed crits not being predicted correctly
Fixed Flame Thrower, Mini-Gun, Pistol and SMG fire sounds crackling in some cases

Bot Fixes

Added Blake Sextus as a bot name
Fixed bots dropping their items in some cases

Territorial Control 2.0 Fixes

Fixed node system not gating base points and territory properly

Networking Improvements

Fixed some subtick desync issues
- Added subtick support for viewpunch
- Fixed subtick prediction getting desynced after a prediction error
- Fixed continuous fire not updating attack frame correctly
- Added subtick to Scottish Resistance sticky bomb selection

Optimizations

Optimized the load of cosmetics, weapons and other items on players
- Loosely based on changes from sigsegv and rafradek (thank you!)
Optimized how players are accessed and found in various systems
- Loosely inspired by changes from sigsegv and rafradek (thank you!)
Limited another type of pain/hurt sound to play every 0.1 rather than spam the sound system too frequently
Optimized smoke stack effect on the server
- Based on changes from sigsegv and rafradek (thank you!)
Reduced size of shader DLL
Other minor performance and stability improvements

Base Team Fortress 2 Update

6 New Community Maps

Dryfield
Camp Saxton
Shorelight
Redwood
Premuda
Mojave

Cosmetics, War Paints, & Taunts

Features a new set of community-created cosmetics, war paints, taunts, and unusual effects.

More info

For a full list of changes to the base game, visit the TF2 Update Post.

WISH YOU WERE HERE...

GET YOUR SUMMER GEAR!

Summer 2026 Cosmetic Case

Atomic Bomber

Bonk! Atomic Kicks

Lieutenant's Cut

Pyro's Overalls

Tropical Torcher

Deadliest Match

Tsar Athlete

Chief Executor

Bald Spotter

Long Shot

Delusions of Grandeur

Beachcomber's Brim

Hard Hearing

Summer 2026 War Paint Case

Team Union

Storage War

Taxi Cabbed

Sandwich Diner

Krak-coated

Die'n Dasher

Army Guns

Ocean Mapped

Sideshow

Beachy Boy

Unusual Effects

Umbral Lights

Northern Lights

Solar Singed

Floral Growth

Stellar Orbit

Blissful Butterflies

New Community Taunts

Buffoon's Bivouac

Friendly Fire

Circuit Breaker

Faux-calization