Valve says the Team Fortress 2 Mann vs Machine update is still coming

Valve has confirmed that the Team Fortress 2 update for its cooperative Mann vs Machine mode is still in development, breaking roughly ten months of silence on a patch first announced in June of last year. PC Gamer reports the confirmation came in a short post on the game’s blog.

The update was announced through a post on TF2’s official website that asked the community to submit maps and missions for inclusion, with what Valve called a fictional deadline of August 27. A brief progress report followed that September, and then nothing until now.

Valve added that it is taking a lot longer to sort through the new content and changes than originally planned, but promised it is making progress and thanked players for their patience.

More submissions than expected

The explanation is consistent with the September progress report, in which Valve said its call for community contributions had produced far more submissions than it anticipated. At that point the company said it did not have a release date and was still working through what had been sent in. That remains the position: no date has been given, and the only firm commitment in the new post is that the work is continuing.

The delay also sits against a busy year elsewhere at Valve. The company launched the Steam Machine, has the Steam Frame headset still to come, and continues development on Deadlock, all of which compete for the attention of a staff that moves between projects rather than being assigned to them.

Major Team Fortress 2 updates have been sporadic, with the last arriving in 2023 and pushing the game to an all-time concurrent player high. Smaller patches continue on a regular cadence, however. Earlier this month the game received an update adding community maps, cosmetics and taunts, followed by a run of smaller patches fixing bugs and adjusting values introduced alongside it.