Team Fortress 2 has received less attention than Valve's other team-based shooter, Counter-Strike 2, but it has not been as abandoned as some corners of the Internet are saying. The game has consistently received small updates every few months, tweaking maps and characters as Valve sees fit. But the latest update is always more substantial, and Valve's 17-year-old shooter has finally entered the 64-bit era.

Valve pushed a new update to the game yesterday, adding 64-bit support to TF2 for both Windows and Linux users. The update also fixes a more specific problem: "Uploading invalid custom decals would cause other clients to crash."

Valve states that the changes "should include performance updates for most users," and this goes beyond just the move to 64-bit; as noted on the TF2 Wiki (via PCGamesN), the patch also includes other It also includes several other undocumented changes that may help speed up the game. The patch increases TF2's maximum FPS from 300 to 400 frames per second, meaning that the game will be smoother than it is now. It will also allow raw mouse input by default.

In addition, Valve has added a -vulkan command line option that allows players to render the game in Vulkan if they choose. This feature is enabled by default on Linux-based systems, so anyone playing TF2 on Steam Deck will benefit from it.

The switch was not entirely smooth sailing. Earlier today, Valve issued a second quick update to fix "an issue where the game was being falsely detected as malware by some anti-viruses. Oops! Nevertheless, this update may provide some short-term relief from the TF2 bot problem. Nevertheless, some users claim that in the long run, this update will actually make it easier to host bots.

Nonetheless, this update shows that Valve is still looking at more colorful team-based shooters. Last year, they reminisced about a tenth character class that never really existed, through the power of collective gaslighting, and even attempted to memeize the character.