Team Fortress 2 becomes F2P

Valve has once again turned to Team Fortress 2 as the studio’s outlet for experimentation, this time with a daring move to make the triple-A game entirely free to play.

In an exclusive interview with Develop – now live – Valve’s Robin Walker assured that Team Fortress 2 would only be monetised by microtransaction payments.

No advertising model will be pursued, Walker said. No premium subscription model will be used. No cynical pay-to-win” options will be implemented, he assured. In-game items will now be the only way Valve gets any money from Team Fortress 2.

We’ve been toying with the idea of making Team Fortress free-to-play ever since the Mann-conomy update [in September 2010],” Walker said.