The ride never ends

When was the last time you playedTeam Fortress 2? During theGun Mettle eventway back in the summer? Maybe when they introduced thatweird sports modea few months back? During Halloween? This very morning in your little Pyro themed underoos while you drank your Atomic Bonk energy drink? NOT RECENTLY ENOUGH according to Valve. So in its continuing effort to make sure you’ll never escape the year 2007,TF2is introducing yet another update/event/bear-trap-to-keep-you-playing.

TheTough Break updateseems structurally similar to the Gun Mettle update. A $5.99 cover charge gets you into a fabulous (metaphorical) VIP room of (non-metaphorical) contract killings and guns. As you complete randomly distributed contracts, you will be rewarded with random cases that contain random guns, that are randomly graded by rarity and conditions. It’s like a Russian nesting doll of tragedy.

The opening area of the Whisper mission, in a small grove.

It wouldn’t be an update without a few new maps and some extra cosmetic items. It’s been such a long time since I’ve been able to keep up with all theothernew maps introduced to the game, that these are functionally meaningless to me. For all I know they’ve been updating the game with the same three maps slightly renamed for years now. The new hotness you may spend yet more money on are a few new taunts, including a bagpipe jig for the Demoman. Really, it took them eight years to actually put bagpipes in his hands?

The Divide in the Cosmodrome, where the Guardian was resurrected.

A holofoil Ribbontail, as seen in collections.

The Phoneutria Fera hand cannon, inspired by the Season of the Haunted armor set. It has a unique, galactic glow.

Three Fuses appear in a match of Apex Legends' Wild Card mode.

Mad Maggie opens a supply bin and an item with a symbol indicating infinite ammo appears.

Legends slide through a zipline in King’s Canyon in Apex Legends.

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The Yeartide Apex tex Mechanica SMG with a Holofoil glow.

Festival Flight, a water gun-shaped grenade launcher for Solstice in Destiny 2.