YouTuber says Team Fortress 2 Source 2 port ‘effectively confirmed’ in new Valve datamine

A well-known Valve investigator/dataminer, Tyler “Hype Merchant” McVicker, says that a new datamine is “effectively confirmation” that Valve is currently working on porting Team Fortress 2 to the Source 2 Engine. He reports that Valve is either remastering Team Fortress 2 in the same way as Counter-Strike 2 or planning a sequel, Team Fortress 3.

In his latest YouTube Video, “An Actual New Team Fortress? Maybe?”, McVicker took a deep dive into code from a Counter-Strike 2 update from October 14. He pointed out that new lines of code were added to Source 1 import strings, which are used to move assets from Valve’s older engine to Source 2. He noted that one of the mechanics being imported was  ‘func_respawnroomvisualizer.’

The important thing about this mechanic is that it's a unique TF2 entity that creates barriers to shield spawn rooms from enemy peeks. McVicker confidently stated in the video, “This seemingly confirms that TF is referring to Team Fortress, and it’s also revealing that they are porting Team Fortress 2 maps into Source 2.”

He further stated, “With most multiplayer-related entities that are exclusive to Team Fortress 2 now being taken advantage of, this is effectively direct confirmation that yes, there’s a team at Valve that is working for some reason working on porting Team Fortress 2 into Source 2.”

However, like many industry watchers and gamers, McVicker isn’t sure what Valve is doing with these ported TF2 entities. He questioned, “Are they trying to do a CS2 thing, where they almost remaster Team Fortress 2, or is this a sequel?”

Many gamers are hoping for a Team Fortress remaster or sequel with ray-traced Unusual hats, Australium weapons, and an updated Golden Frying Pan. However, McVicker tempered expectations, noting that the first mention of the TF project came only this year and that Valve’s legacy is not to count past the number two.

This newfound “hopium” comes in the wake of Valve’s sprawling collection of Source 2-ported titles, Dota 2, CS2, and Deadlock in playtesting. There are also erratic levels of hype in the gaming community about the announcement of Half-Life 3 towards the tail end of 2025. Still, all rumors should be taken with a grain of salt, as Valve characteristically remains tight-lipped.

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