Team Fortress 2 was crashing because it thought the player was Half-Life's Gordan Freeman.
Earlier this week, Team Fortress 2 got a hefty update after years of relative abandonment, seeing the game go from 32-bit to 64-bit support. That's all well and good, but apparently that update came with its own set of new issues for the long-running shooter, in particular one to do with a custom heads up display for the player.
Apparently, some 64-bit players of Team Fortress 2 were using a custom HUD that replicated elements of Half-Life 2. This HUD assumes the player is Half-Life 2 protagonist Gordan Freeman, which makes perfect sense, given that he's the protagonist of the game. The trouble is, Freeman isn't in Team Fortress 2, and the game was crashing as a result.
- Valve adds "all the Team Fortress 2 client and server game code" to its Source mod tools, letting modders "build completely new games based on TF2" and publish them on Steam
- Valve literally gives Half-Life away now, but 27 years ago it was carefully crushing its angry pirates: "None of them had actually bought the game"
Now, a new patch for Team Fortress 2 has remedied that issue. "Fixed a crash under 64-bit caused by some custom HUDs using Half-Life 2 HUD elements which assume the player is Gordan Freeman," the patch notes read, as per the tweet below. Sorry, Team Fortress 2. You were wrong to assume the player using the Half-Life 2 HUD would be Freeman, but I can see where you were coming from.
A patch for TF2 has been released! pic.twitter.com/Jd855zIDDgApril 22, 2024
"The right team in the wrong fortress can make all the difference in the world," wrote one Twitter user in reaction to the patch note. "This is the funniest bug fix since the one where the game would crash if Sniper tried to eat his gun," wrote another user. "I dunno," chimed in another player, "I think Engineer's bulletproof crotch is up there." What the hell has been going on in this shooter?
Still, the new patch earlier this week improved performance for plenty of players, those with the custom Half-Life 2 HUD notwithstanding. Players have been reporting their frame rate doubling, in many cases, and some have even reported having a frame rate of over 300. That's some really impressive work for a game that hasn't received a significant update in years.
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