Play Ball! Team Fortress 2 Gets New Game Mode From Star Wars Studio

When not working on Star Wars, Bad Robot has been creating a new sport which can be played within Team Fortress 2.

Valve and Star Wars studio Bad Robot have been on friendly terms for a few years, which is why that Super 8 interactive trailer ended up in Portal 2. But now the partnership has created something far more interesting: A new Team Fortress 2 game mode. Designed by Bad Robot and co-developed by Escalation Studios, PASS Time is a fast-paced sport where each team tries to steal the ball and score goals under heavy fire. And what's more, you can play the beta right now within Team Fortress 2.

PASS Time centers on the "jack", a ball which any player can pick up but also replaces their weapon. That means you're depending on your team to cover you while escorting the jack to a goal zone. At any point, you can pass the jack to another player, but have to be coordinated enough that the enemy doesn't intercept it at the worst time.

Carrying the jack has some benefits - health regenerates, speed increases, you gain temporary invulnerability upon stealing or intercepting, and you can see teammates and opponents across the map. PASS Time also introduces speed boosts and jump pads to keep the action fast-paced. Oh, and if a match ends in a tie? Now you've entered a literal Sudden Death mode to determine the winner.

Team Fortress 2 has been getting regular updates like this since 2007, and it's promising to see Valve still has no intention of slowing down. You can play PASS Time today by loading up the beta maps in-game.

Source: Team Fortress 2

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Isn't this just Hutt Ball in first person? The SWTOR game.

Eiv:
Isn't this just Hutt Ball in first person? The SWTOR game.

I thought the exact same thing. TF2 Hutt Ball.

Eiv:
Isn't this just Hutt Ball in first person? The SWTOR game.

This can only be a good thing!

On a more serious note, I often wonder how much money and profit Valve has made from TF2 and it's hat based economy versus the churn out a new title every year approach that the other big publishers use.

Seems very similar to Bombing Run from UT2K4.

http://liandri.beyondunreal.com/Bombing_Run

That just sounds like grifball with guns.

I'm in.

Dirty Hipsters:
That just sounds like grifball with guns.

I'm in.

Nah, unlike Grifball, there's actual terrain. Honestly it's more like Halo 4's Ricochet mode.

Huttball was always the most fun PvP mode in SWTOR, glad to see it coming to TF2.

It added a whole new dynamic to the game and made knockbacks incredibly valuable.

I gave it a try. While it definitely has potential, it reminded me why I don't play competitive games in public matches, or why I don't play TF2 for extended periods of time.
Defense is boring and no one really wants to do it. You also need more than one engineer, as there is a path a scout can use that skirts around any decent sentry position to do an easy throw into the goal. (Just stay to the right side, there's a ton of cover that makes it so a sentry can't cover both that side and the center)

But i've also seen a few neat tricks as well, such as a soldier using the rocket jumper and having someone pass the ball to him right as he rocket jumps, letting him carry the ball over the sentry line to dunk into the goal. A pyro makes a good goalie by airblasting/catching any throws at the goal.
People finally AREN'T sniper/spy spamming, and a good sniper/spy can be of good use in the match.
Also for some reason, any alternate-fire related to the melee weapon also steals the ball, such as hitting the carrier with a baseball from the sandman.

As for bugs I've seen: I haven't played too much, but i did enter a server to find that some guy on RED glitched the ball into their spawn and refused to let it out for the entire match. (If a team doesn't have 3 goals, the match is decided on points)