Valve has issued a blog post (opens in new tab) revealing that Team Fortress 2 is getting a "major update" this summer. That means not only the usual infusion of new cosmetic items, but also the addition of a whole viking of "items, maps, taunts, unusual effects, warpaint, and who knows what else."

The only catch is that it must all be provided by the community: Valve is developing this "yet unnamed, unthemed, but still very exciting summer-specific (though not summer-themed) unless you want to)" for the update, and called for submissions to the Steam Workshop by May 1.

To put things in perspective, the last major update for Team Fortress 2 was "Scream Fortress 14" last October. If that doesn't sound bad enough, we note that the last non-Scream Fortress major update for TF2 was Jungle Inferno in 2017. Furthermore, it appears that Mercenary Park, a control point map, was the last time TF2 got new content within Valve. All other "major" updates have been Steam Workshop-driven.

It's nice to see that community rewarded with additional updates, especially with the increased love and attention for TF2 over the past year and the fan campaign (open in new tab) to get developer-side support from Valve. Even if all of this content is provided by the community, the work of these workshops has been lauded and raised in stature by Valve.

This news also follows Valve effectively giving the community the keys to the kingdom (opens in new tab) and giving modders greater freedom in modifying the game through VScript. how the modding community reacts to Valve's call for submissions It will be interesting to see how the modding community responds to Valve's call for submissions, and whether the developer can create a cohesive theme of events from these disparate projects.