Team Fortress 2 Classic has two main goals: trimming the fat from Valve's original 2007 masterpiece, and adding in unreleased and forgotten content that's been trapped on the cutting room floor for over a decade.
Of the many changes made, the most important are as follows:
TF2c Changes
- Complete removal of cosmetics. No hats, no unusuals, no taunts except the default.
- A major trimming of weapon options in favor of a mix of a small number of new and returning items, with a focus on reducing the presence of class-redefining gimmicks:
- The Scout gets his Nail Gun from the Beta.
- The Soldier keeps his Gunboats and the one-rocket-in-the-clip RPG, now with projectile drop and significantly ramped up damage.
- The Pyro keeps their Flare Gun from live.
- The Demoman gets the Gunboats now, and also gets the Dynamite Pack from the beta and the Mine Layer, which can lay down proximity mines.
- The Heavy keeps his Sandvich
- The Engineer gets a Coil Gun, a chargeable, projectile firing sidearm that can even ricochet its shots around corners.
- The Medic keeps his Kritzkrieg note and Ubersaw note , and received a new Shock Therapy melee that can heal teammates.
- Sniper keeps the Huntsman from live, now has a Hunting Revolver with multiple shots in the clip. And the Fishwhacker, which works similarly to live's Bushwacka.
- Spy gets his Tranquilizer Gun from the beta.
- A new playable class: the Civilian, exclusive to his own game mode.
- Two new game modes and one returning:
- The aforementioned VIP mode
- A new Domination mode based off the short-lived Territory Control mode from live, where teams can hold multiple points at once, increasing their score every few seconds by the number of points they control. First to a set number wins.
- The returning Arena mode, with no respawn.
- Two new teams: GRN and YLW, only available in Domination and Arena.
Compare Open Fortress, which shares some past and present developers with this mod.
In addition to many of the tropes from live TF2, Team Fortress 2 Classic provides examples of:
- Adaptational Badass: Downplayed with the Civilian. In the original Team Fortress Classic, the Civilian class had only 50 HP and had no abilities. In Team Fortress 2 Classic, Civilian has his pitiful HP boosted to 200, has a morale aura that grants a defensive buff to his team, and can temporarily boost a teammate with minicrits. He's still The Load by design and helpless on his own, but at least he provides benefits to his bodyguards.
- Adaptational Context Change: When the VIP is killed, the defending team hears the Administrator say one of her old lines from live's War update. In that context she was goading on Soldier and Demoman to kill each other and reinforcing that they work for her. Here the lines are all about killing the VIP.
- Alternate Continuity: The game treats the original game's story as Loose Canon, ignoring most of what came after Meet the Medic.
- Blow You Away: The Pyro can still airblast like in the original game and it can also put out the bomblets from the Dynamite Pack, rendering it useless.
- Comically Small Bribe: The Civilian will sometimes announce he'll give a five cent raise for the team should the team help him escape. On top of paying them seventy-five cents per hour.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: The Mann brothers may not show up, but the new Civilian has his fingers in a lot of pies, and a lot of people want him dead. That's where you come in.
- Cowardly Lion: It's clear the Civilian is more concerned with saving his own hide over his teammates. However the bonuses he can provide for his team means he would need to lead the charge to reach the objective.
- Critical Hit: Heavily downplayed compared to the original. Random crits are gone, as are most crit and mini-crit generating weapons. The Kritzkrieg, the Sniper Rifle, the Knife, the Fishwhacker and the Flare Gun are the only ways to get full crits now, and the only sources of mini-crits are the Civilian's morale boost effect, reflecting a projectile with an airblast, hitting a Sniper with the Fishwhacker.
- Fun with Acronyms: Much like the REDnote and BLUnote teams from live, the new GRN and YLW teams are also acronyms, which stand for Global Radio Network and Yard Logistics Workers, respectively.
- Game Mod: Alongside being one, people have also modded it further to add custom weapons (and even bring back weapons the mod is supposed to cut) to Team Fortress 2. This is the main draw for some people, rather than TF2 with less, ironically.
- Instant Sedation: Averted by the Spy's Tranq Gun, as it just reduces the victim's movement speed.
- Interface Screw: The Tranq Gun causes this effect — it colorblinds the victim, meaning it's unable to tell the difference between friend and foe.
- Kill It with Fire: As in the main game, this is the Pyro's standard method of killing people. This game adds the unused animations for when a character burns to death.
- Land Mine Goes "Click!": Demoman's new Mine Layer secondary will softly beep before automatically detonating, giving alert players a chance to escape.
- Lethal Joke Weapon: The Brick. A new Scout secondary weapon, it is thrown at enemies and deals a flat 50 damage, with the brick needing a few seconds to regenerate after every throw. Undoubtedly a lot less flashy than the various Scout throwables in base TF2, but the Brick can be a useful mid-range tool to help soften up a target, and combos well with his other weapons.
- Magical Defibrillator: The Medic's new Shock Therapy melee, which when charged will heal a single teammate to full health and overheal.
- Nail 'Em: The Scout's returning Nail Gun does exactly that.
- Parasol of Pain: The Civilian may be limited to melee only, but that umbrella can still kill you just as well as any other melee weapon can.
- Punch-Packing Pistol: The Engineer's new Coil Gun can be charged up, dealing 75 damage at full charge. As a bonus, the weapon's bolts ricochet off walls at full charge without falloff.
- Recoil Boost: The Scout's Force-O-Nature is gone, and the shotgun with this ability instead goes to the Pyro's Twin-Barrelled Shotgun.
- Revisiting the Roots: The mod aims to present a stripped-down reimagining of Team Fortress 2's 2008-2009 era, which many fans note was a game that was expanding while still sticking to its release day fundamentals, in contrast to the highly-customisable free-to-play sandbox of the current game.
- Revolvers Are Just Better: Spy's Revolver obviously fits the bill. Also the Sniper now has the Hunting Revolver, which gives Sniper a slight health boost, a six-round clip, and a faster rate of fire. With the sacrifice of less zoom and no charged shots.
- Rocket Jump:
- The Soldier and the Demoman can do this as usual.
- The Engineer loses his Wrangler, but he can overload his Coil Gun and the resultant explosion will launch him.
- Averted with the Pyro since both the Scorch Shot and the Detonator are removed.
- Shock and Awe: Medic's Shock Therapy melee. Which does damage to an enemy depending on it's charge, which can do up to a whopping 100 damage. It used to do critical damage to wet players before it was removed in the 2.0.2 patch.
- Shout-Out: As you'd expect, there are any among the achievement names. For example: "Enter Sandman", "A Burning Memory", "Don't Fear the Reaper", "Hunt Down the Frenchman", "No, Time to Die", "Skyfall", "If He Dies...", "Undercover Boss", and "Rip and Tear!".
- Simple, yet Awesome: The main design philosophy, in both gameplay and art style. By removing the wacky hats and eyebleeding particle effects the simple art style of the original game shines through, and by cutting out a bunch of weapons the ones that remain can be balanced more effectively.
- Sniper Scope Glint: Sniper Rifles will always show a red/blue (depending on the team) colored glint where they're aiming shown in walls as a dot, making it possible to see if there's one awaiting if you look well. Unlike most examples where it's an external light source providing the glint, here it's the result of the built-in Laser Sight used in the rifle's scope. The same rules from the base game still apply here, only now they include yellow and green variations.
- Springs, Springs Everywhere: The Engineer now has the option to replace his Teleporter with a Jump Pad, letting him and his allies reach greater heights.
- Status Effects: Downplayed. Outside of the ubiquitous Fire, only Bleeding and the Marked-for-Death effect return, both caused by the Fishwhacker note
- Stone Wall: The Civilian has a whopping 200 HP, and provides a defense buff to surrounding teammates and a chance to give a player minicrits. However he only has an umbrella to defend himself with.
- Suicide Attack: Akin to Soldier's Kamikaze taunt in the base game, Demoman can perform this with the Dynamite Pack as a kill taunt.
- The Load: The Civilian is meant to be this — he has no ranged attacks and the rest of the BLU team is meant to protect him.
- Throw Down the Bomblet: The Dynamite Pack for the Demoman makes a return, being the first throwable weapon in the game.
- Tranquillizer Dart: What the Spy's new Tranq Gun fires, which impedes the victims movement and vision for a few seconds. Using the knife on a tranquilized enemy does crit damage regardless of being a backstab or not.
- Quintessential British Gentleman: With his reedy voice, fancy suit, wielding an umbrella as a weapon, and actually hailing from Dorset in England, the Civilian is a clear nod to this
- Universal Ammunition: The Gun Mettle update removed this from live, but since Classic doesn't let you pick up enemy weapons, the original absurdity of a dropped knife refilling a minigun is back. Still downplayed compared to live TF2 at its most absurd, though, since the most absurd weapons like dead fish and Christmas ornaments aren't present here.
- Utility Weapon: Downplayed compared to live. Heavy's utility melees note are gone, as are the Powerjack on Pyro, the Booties and shields on Demo, the banners on Soldier, and the Sniper's backpacks. The only example remaining are the Gunboats.
- Wrench Whack: Engineer's Wrench acts the same way in the base game, but it can also defuse a Dynamite Pack as if it were a Sapper if the player acts fast enough.
