We may earn a commission when you buy through links in our articles. Learn more.

“Dance like no one’s shooting at you”: Team Fortress 2’s Love and War update is live

Love and War: accompanied by the longest TF2 short to date, Expiration Date.

Team Fortress 2 continues to do a really good impersonation of a pretty new game with its brand new Love and War update. Expect a slew of extra guns – including one old favourite – some gluten-heavy weaponry, and a few new expressions for two. Aww.

Say hello to the Back Scatter. It’s a stealth scattergun which scores mini-crits when fired at the back of targets, or at close range – at a cost to accuracy and clip size.

It’s joined in min-max offensiveness by two other guns: ‘The Classic’ sniper rifle, which allows its wielder to charge and fire shots without zooming, but requires a full charge for headshot damage. And ‘The Air Strike’ rocket launcher, which offers increased attack speed while blast jumping and an increase in clip size on killing an opponent – at the expense of an overall nerf.

Staying outside the sentient bread sphere for the moment, there’s also the new Tide Turner – a nautically-themed shield which ups fire and explosive resistance. More entertainingly, it also grants full turning control when charging, and refills your charge meter if you kill anybody while doing so.

And there’s a parachute – the B.A.S.E. jumper slows descent if you press the jump key while in mid-air.

Then there’s a variety of yeast-based weaponry which will be passingly familiar to anybody who watched yesterday’s official TF2 short.

Beware a “self-aware” jarate variant which sees coated enemies take mini-crits; fear bread-built boxing gloves that increase move speed at the cost of damage and being marked for death; run directly away from the new sapper with tiny, tumerous teeth; and scream for Mutated Milk, which sees players heal a portion of the damage they deal to a milk-covered target.

All of those lethal loaves are available through crafting the Bread Box, a recipe that’ll exist only until July 9.

Elsewhere there are new expressions: something to do besides fire rockets while waiting for the gates to open pre-match. They’re the Conga, the Square Dance, the Skull Cracker, Rock, Paper, Scissors and the Flip – and come with a host of associated achievements.

Anything here you expect to adopt into your TF2 routine?