Shortly after it went online in 2007, Fortress Team 2 branched out into webcomics. What started as quick, silly promotional tie-ins for seasonal updates to the watershed hero shooter has evolved into an ambitious, full-fledged story arc. Beginning with 2013’s “Ring of Fired,” this seven-part event featured the kind of deeper characterization, expanded world-building, and larger-than-life stakes that Fortress Team 2 players had never seen before. Fans loved these comics, and Valve promised to release new issues every few months.

But in 2015, the comic slowed down before quietly shutting down and going dormant in 2017. For the next seven years, Valve said nothing about the status of the comic, nor that of Fortress Team 2 and pretty much everything else they worked on. Frustrated fans abandoned the comics and Fortress Team 2 but, to everyone’s surprise, Valve eventually patched the game and dropped the final issue in 2024. As expected, the comic concluded the story, but it went further by being effective as well. END Fortress Team 2 and bid farewell to the mercenaries.

Issue #7 of Team Fortress 2 Comics can be read as the official ending of the game

The comic ended the characters’ stories

The most surprising and important thing about Number 7, “The Days Have Gone By,” showed how sincerely sentimental he was. Naturally, it was still filled with the game’s signature absurdist humor and slapstick violence. The comic was also loaded with nostalgic callbacks to previous issues and old bits of gaming history. Those who played this game since the days of Orange box or when it first became free, you’ll get misty-eyed flipping through the pages of the comic.

However, issue #7 was also a darker and more melancholy conclusion than expected. Given Team Fortress 2 inherent madness and mockery of real-world logic, it was surprising, but entirely welcome. Not only did it open with a dedication to the late, great Rick May, the voice actor for Soldier, but the comic had the mercenaries grappling with the fact that the sun was setting on them. In retrospect, the series as a whole could now be read as a meditation on mortality.

Aside from learning that they were disposable pawns and the laughing stock of TF Industries, Team Fortress (essentially Red Team) discovered that the wars they were fighting were all pointless and in service of the Administrator’s centuries-old grudge. To add insult to injury, she forgot why she was seeking revenge in the first place. In an additional meta sense, the brief appearances of better equipped and more “modern” mercenary teams can be seen as Team Fortress realizes they have been replaced by the castings of new class-based hero shooting games like Apex Legends, Marvel Rivals, Overwatch Or Valuation.

Team Fortress was on its way out, and they knew it. Meanwhile, Mrs. Pauling inherited the Administrator’s remaining power and wealth following the latter’s death. Each was essentially offered the opportunity to restart the cycles of meaningless violence that consumed their lives and to maintain Team Fortress 2 wars and history unfold. But rather than overstay their welcome or selfishly fight destiny like the Administrator, the Mann brothers and Heavy Weapons Guy from Team Fortress Classic did, the mercenaries accepted their mortality, walked away, and chose to live in the moment.

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The comic ends with the disbandment of Team Fortress. The mercenaries separated while remaining in contact. Each mercenary solved their personal problems and lived a new life far from the battlefields of Teufort. Most notably, Scout abandoned her crush on Mrs. Pauling and the two separated amicably. In fact, he became a single father to more children than anyone ever expected. Soldier and Zhanna, Heavy’s younger sister, married and started a family.

Spy hasn’t yet told Scout that he’s her father, but the events of the comics have made him more emotionally open than ever. The engineer was now free of his family’s burden to the Administrator and is much happier in the end. The worst that can be said of number 7 is that he did not sufficiently cover the rest of the team. – namely Demoman, Heavy, Medic, Pyro and Sniper – but the epilogue at least confirmed that they were happy and alive.

Even Team Fortress 2 the supporting characters got the ending they deserved. Mrs. Pauling is nowhere to be seen in the epilogue, but one would assume that she is now living her own life instead of following someone else’s orders. Merasmus was tortured to death, but is now released from prison and lives happily with Tom Jones in the haunted bricks pocketed by the soldier. Saxton Hale retired to live the adventurous life he really wanted with his old flame, Margaret. Hale also fired (read: freed) Olivia Mann before leaving Mann Co. to her assistants, finally giving her the chance to live for herself for the first time in her life.

Moreover, almost all conflicts have ended. Old grudges were settled, mysteries were solved, the Gravel Wars ended, and the world’s remaining Australium was wiped out. Threats like The Administrator, Clan Mann, and Team Fortress Classic were dead. No matter what new mercenary wars or family feuds emerge in this world, they will no longer affect Team Fortress and their loved ones. The world of Fortress Team 2 as the players knew it was over, and it ended in the most satisfying way possible.

Issue #7 of Team Fortress 2 Comics gave mercenaries and players the closure they’ve been waiting for for years

The comic ended the story, not the existence or future of the game

This does not mean that Fortress Team 2 ends soon. On the one hand, the game will only be truly finished when Valve shuts down its servers. The studio currently shows no signs of doing so in the near future. Additionally, the game is still popular and profitable, even though it is long past its peak. Just this year, Team Fortress 2 the number of players has doubled and rose for the first time in nearly a decade after Valve bowed to widespread public pressure and fixed the bot problem that had plagued the game for so long. The blog post that announced the release of issue #7 also seemingly hinted at an upcoming update that would make up for the disappointing recent ones (namely “Meet Your Match” and “Jungle Inferno”), getting fans excited about the game. potential return to form.

Some even think that the blog coyly hinted at the long-awaited “heavy update”. The game is also approaching its 20th anniversary and fans are hoping that Valve will celebrate this milestone like it has before. Half-life And Half-life 2. Few if any games released in the 2000s have as much longevity as Fortress Team 2 does, and it would be ill-advised for Valve to just kill it. Valve simply has more reasons, both practical and emotional, to keep the game around a little longer than otherwise.

What did the end was an era in both Team Fortress 2 history and that of the world of video games. During the creative drought caused by the admitted laziness of the developers, Fortress Team 2 was stuck in an undead state. As a game, its quality and player count have stagnated as it has not received any interesting updates or improvements. It hasn’t helped that its gameplay hasn’t evolved, although new hero shooters have improved its formula. It could be argued that he didn’t need to fix what wasn’t broken, but he also didn’t innovate or keep up with the times. As a story, it left its characters and setting hanging for years.

Mercenaries, while still appreciated and recognized on the Internet, embodied trends that have long since faded from the zeitgeist. Longtime fans weren’t sure if the game was actually dead and worth their continued investment, or if Valve would ever do anything with it beyond selling more hats. In essence, Valve is gone Fortress Team 2 and its community perpetually stuck in the late 2000s. The game, its story, and its characters were static remnants of a bygone era. it hasn’t aged terribly but hasn’t grown up either. Fortunately, issue #7 finally ended that stagnation by giving fans the closure they’ve been waiting for.

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Number 7 is many things — it’s the belated finale of a webcomic that began 11 years ago; this is the end of the myth of a hero shooter; it’s a silly but honest reflection on the value of life, however brief it may be; it can also be interpreted as a rejection of the vanity intrinsic to the quest for success, revenge or eternal life. Some might go so far as to view global history as a mockery of the inhumanity and narcissism that drives greedy capitalism, ruthless ambition and war profiteering.

Others would say this is part of Valve’s effort to make up for the decade they lost doing nothing with their games and betraying their fans’ trust in them. But above all, the comic is a fond farewell to a game and characters that many people grew up with, and a heartfelt “thank you” to them as well. Nowhere was this made clearer than in the final pages of the comic, where Scout invites the reader to the Smissmas celebration hosted by Team Fortress. The comic itself, Team Fortress 2 enduring popularity, and its potentially new future would never have happened without one of the most dedicated and loyal fan communities that has ever existed.

After many long and exhausting years, the fans’ refusal to let their favorite game and mercenaries rot or let Valve continue to rely on their goodwill has finally been rewarded. This comic may be the start of the game’s second wind, but whatever happens to it from here on, it now has a definitive end. Nothing is forever, including Fortress Team 2. The game will be playable via Steam for the foreseeable future, but for a generation of players, Fortress Team 2 is done. Older fans can finally rest easy knowing that their faith in his return wasn’t in vain and move on. Just like the mercenaries of Team Fortress showed, it’s worthy to know when it’s time to stand down.

Fans can also take comfort in knowing that their favorite mercenaries will live happily and safely for the rest of their lives. New players will continue to fight RED, BLU, or Gray for years to come, hopefully on new maps and with new weapons. But for those whose formative years were spent fighting for control points, intelligence and payloads in an online war that began nearly 20 years ago, this is the end of the line . “The days have passed” gave Fortress Team 2 and his fans the closure they needed and wanted. There couldn’t have been a better swan song for the gaming world’s most lovable psychotic mercenaries.

Issues 1-7 of Team Fortress 2 Comics are now available to read on the game’s official website. The game is free on Steam.

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Fortress Team 2

Nine mercenaries, two teams, guns and hats. Welcome to Team Fortress 2, where psychopaths fight with shotguns, rocket launchers, pistols, baseball bats, surgical equipment, laser guns and wear novelty hats.

Systems

Platform(s)

PC, PS3, Xbox 360, Linux, macOS

Released

October 10, 2007

Developer(s)

Valve

Editor(s)

Valve

Multiplayer

Online co-op, online multiplayer

Engine

Source

ESRB

M for Mature: Blood and gore, intense violence

Develop