The Team Fortress 2 universe is strong and flexible enough to absorb just about anything you can hold in your hands or balance on your head. In the last couple of years, it’s become the happy host of themed items for about four dozen Steam games.
Ordinarily, Valve work with developers and a venn diagram to come up with a suitable crossover point. But for Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris, Squeenix are opening up Tomb Raider history to the TF2 Workshop community.
There’s going to be a contest. TF2 Workshop creators are going to build Tomb Raider-related stuff, and we’re going to vote on the best of it.
The whole history of the series is open for interpretation, and in fact Valve would prefer creators to work with the ‘90s material – since Temple of Osiris is the one corner of the contemporary Tomb Raider where ye olde disproportioned Lara lives on.
“If you’ve been waiting for your chance to put the heavy in short shorts, this is it. (Please don’t do this),” write Valve. “You’re welcome to pull from your favorite villains, heroes, levels, or any bit of lore.”
The contest will begin after the next TF2 update. Each submission must be the work of two or fewer contributors, and needs to be tagged in the Workshop with ‘Tomb Raider’ to avoid licensing shenanigans.
Valve will begin judging the highest-voted creations on November 20, and announce up to three winners a few days later. Those items will available as Genuine-quality rewards for pre-purchasing Temple of Osiris on Steam.
The winning creators will get a free copy of Osiris, as well as practically every game in Square Enix’s Steam catalogue. That’s nice, isn’t it?
Scream Fortress turned TF2 into a urine-soaked carnival this year. Did you take part?