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It's been several years since Gabe Newell and JJ Abrams took to the stage at DICE to announce Valve and Bad Robot were going to be collaborating on game and film projects. While there are still no Valve-related films on the horizon, the most recent update for Team Fortress 2 has revealed the first piece of content co-developed by both companies (with quite a lot of help from Valve's friends over at Escalation Studios). Introducing "PASS Time", a new beta gamemode which combines "TF2's usual fast-paced bloodsport with the actual fast-paced sports of soccer, hockey, and basketball." Basically, it's football in TF2.
Both teams are pitted against each other and must fight over the "jack", a ball-shaped bomb and successfully throw it into the enemy's circular goal. When carrying the jack, the player loses the ability to use their weapons and receives a number of powerful benefits, such as regular health regeneration, faster movement speed, and the ability to see the location of defending enemy players through walls. "Jack-carriers" can also pass the ball to other players in range, helping separate the gamemode from the age-old Capture the Flag gamemode. Whichever team reaches the score limit (default of 3) first wins the round.
A new map known as "Warehouse" is currently the only one to support the gamemode. This is largely due to the gamemode's dependency on thin, tight maps, and a lack of flanking routes, allowing good "defender" classes like Heavy and Engineer to setup and properly defend their goal. PASS Time maps also make use of new Unreal Tournament-style jump pads (both the horizontal and vertical varieties) and speed boast power-ups similar to those featured in the Mannpower beta gamemode.
While it may seem like a big departure from standard Team Fortress 2, we're happy to report the gamemode still features largely the same gameplay some of us have known for over 8 years, with a few neat additions helping to spice things up. Even though Valve's own team are seemingly not working on PASS Time at all, they do recommend using the [email protected] email address to provide feedback on the work-in-progress gamemode to both Bad Robot and Escalation Studios.
A new map known as "Warehouse" is currently the only one to support the gamemode. This is largely due to the gamemode's dependency on thin, tight maps, and a lack of flanking routes, allowing good "defender" classes like Heavy and Engineer to setup and properly defend their goal. PASS Time maps also make use of new Unreal Tournament-style jump pads (both the horizontal and vertical varieties) and speed boast power-ups similar to those featured in the Mannpower beta gamemode.
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