Wait, what, Team Fortress 2 turns 10 round about today?

You’re kidding me, right? Team Fortress 2, that silly war-themed hat simulator? That game with the goofy classes and even goofier weapons and cosmetics, is ten years old?

Seriously?

Well according to Team Fortress 2’s Steam Store page, yes, it is. October 10th, 2007. A whole decade ago.

Bloody hell.

That’s a pretty long time.

Okay, it’s not really that long in the grand scheme of things. After all, I’m twenty five years old at the time of writing. The real TF2 Medic, if he were actually real, would probably be in his 80’s at least. Although the real Medic would probably have some way to make himself immortal or something like that.

But still, a decade for a single game is rather impressive. Only the true giants of gaming last that long, games like World of Warcraft and Runescape and that sort of thing. And many games kinda cheat by releasing sequels and prequels and things like that. Yeah, yeah, Mario has been around since before I was born, first appearing in 1981, but he’s appeared in several billion games since then and has a new game about him every couple of years.

Even though Team Fortress 2 has slowed down in terms of quality and updates over the last few years, the community still stands. There’s still 60,000 people every day loading up the game and playing, and Team Fortress 2 is STILL in the top ten most played games on Steam. Not bad considering there hasn’t been a real update since December. The fact that the Steam store page hasn’t even been updated. It still has the banner from the Tough Break update on it. And really, Competitive Matchmaking has been pretty damn mediocre. But there’s all those people still playing.

And you can see why. Despite being an old game, the gameplay, the graphics, the feel, it all stands proud. There’s a unique, slightly whiffy, slightly humble, slightly dated air about Team Fortress 2 that few games have managed to capture. Sure, I can go play Overwatch, but the feeling just isn’t the same. Team Fortress 2 has spoiled us rotten. Many people just can’t quite move on.

Really, we owe TF2 a lot. Especially me. I mean, I’ve blatantly stolen the name Medic and am still using it (even though I’m slowly moving to a new username). If it wasn’t for me pretending to be a TF2 character and getting into the game in general, well, I probably wouldn’t be here, writing a blog post congratulating Team Fortress 2 on turning 10.

I’d probably have ended up being one of those Facebook candy crush bimbos. Ugh. That’s a horrible thought. Maybe this timeline isn’t so bad after all.

Anyway, yeah, back to Team Fortress 2.

While there’s been no updates, and a lot of poor choices being made and a whole lot of nothing going on, it’s rather impressive that we’ve made it this far. Team Fortress 2 is still a 100% perfectly playable game. Very few other games make it this far. Even fewer make it this far without relying on sequels and the life.

So congratulations, Team Fortress 2! Many have their doubts that you’ll still be alive to see your 15th or 20th birthdays, but you never know. Maybe Team Fortress 2 will have a burst of life and become a legend among games and gamers. Who knows? Let’s be optimistic about these things.

Speaking of optimistic, we should all go and celebrate. Boot up Team Fortress 2. Go play a little 2fort or Dustbowl or Badlands or whatever you want. Go and enjoy yourselves.