Team Fortress 2 Gold Rush Map and Medic Achievements now out in the wild, plus free-to-play weekend May 2nd – 4th

In the biggest update since the Orange Box launch, Valve has announced that the new Gold Rush Map and Medic Achievements update is available to download. Like all other updates it is completely free – Valve believes in rewarding its regular players, not shafting them for micropayments, which is why their multiplayer games are among the best there are.

The Gold Rush map offers a whole new game mode. Attacking players must escort a mine cart, which helpfully spills health, to the defending players’ base. The more players that stand by it, the faster it goes, while the quicker the opposing team blows them into tiny bloody chunks, the slower it will advance. Extra control points along the way give the attacking team more of a chance and less of hike – the level is a pretty big one.

That all sounds very neat, but the medic achievements are having more of a polarising effect on player opinions. I put my own case for the prosecution the other day, not questioning whether the new weapons, detailed here, will break the game, but whether the sheer scale and complexity of what needs to be done to win them will break the game as players perform all kinds of illogical, tactically disastrous acts just to get them. Check out the full list of achievements, ranging form the basic to the bloody impossible, right here.

There’s no doubt this tactics are going to go to pot while people try and earn achievements, but we’ll have to see whether really adversely affects the game overall once we’ve had time to settle in. Right now and for the next week or so you can probably expect TF2 servers to be completely flooded by medics seeking the new medic unlocks.

If you haven’t played TF2 yet, you need to fix that shit right now. Fortunately, Valve is more than happy to cater for your slackness. You’ll be able to play the game absolutely free for the whole of this weekend. Simply get Steam, create an account and download it.

Team Fortress 2

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