The Tough Break Smissmas Update

Editor’s note: Yes, I know we published an article on this yesterday, but Night’s article is better than mine. And more factually correct.

This Smissmas is looking damn good.

I can’t remember the last time I was really excited about an update. Gun Mettle was fun, I liked the contracts. koth_probed was fun on Invasion. Other than those two I haven’t paid attention to any major TF2 updates since mid-2014.

The Tough Break Update, however, has my attention.

This update brings the Tough Break Campaign Pass, available for US$5.99. The campaign will be spread over three months, just like Gun Mettle. With it come new kinds of contracts, though a full list hasn’t been released to my knowledge. These include weapon-specific contracts, and to cater for those who are too poor or lazy to acquire the necessary weapons, the Loaner Program has been implemented, allowing you to loan a weapon for the duration of the current contract. Please note that the ability to rent a weapon for a week for free has been in the game since the beginning of the Mann Co Store, and aabicus wrote an article on it almost two full years ago.

Completing a Tough Break contract with net you one of the new skins from the Harvest or Gentlemanne’s Collection. This skin has a chance of being a special “one-of-a-kind weapon, featuring progressive wear and multiple rarity levels,” which sounds like it would be very expensive. You could also get one of the new cases, the Warbird Case and Pyroland Case. I suppose Valve decided to capitalize on that hype for the Pyromania Update from 2012. Valve has finally elected to add knife skins, another crucial step in uniting TF2 and CSGO once and for all.

I’ve noticed that while some of these skins look very nice and original, some are woefully similar to skins added in Gun Mettle:

Valve also seems to be endorsing Campaign-based competition: “Buying access to the Tough Break Campaign puts a Contract Pass in your inventory. Just click on it to activate it, and it will transform into an upgradable Contract Stamp. Your stamp keeps track of your progress on active contracts, levels up as you complete them, and shows off your level to other players on the Scoreboard.”

The Tough Break Campaign Pass will also grant you a weekly drop of the Tough Break Cosmetic Case, containing 15 new items.

Now that we’ve covered the new Campaign, on to – in my opinion – the more tantalizing content.

Four new community maps have been added to the game, and there’s a gamemode for everyone! The pl_snowycoast, cp_vanguard, koth_highpass, and ctf_landfall. Notably this makes Landfall the first ctf map added to official rotation since ctf_doublecross way back in 2009.

Three new taunts have been shipped with the update: Mannrobics, Badpipes, and the Bucking Bronco.

And keeping with recent tradition, with this update comes a huge number of gameplay and balance changes, which definitely excite me the most. Lots and lots of long-requested changes has come with this update, and I think Valve’s heading in the right direction with this one.

You can see all of those by clicking the image below. We’ll be going over them over the next few/weeks/etc.