In response to various calls from our blog attentive audience, we’re happy to report that the next class to receive the update treatment will be the Soldier.

Playing such a damage-centric role, the Soldier has been extremely difficult to develop beyond the default offensive stance that we commonly see him occupying. As such, we decided we like to blur the line between attack/defence, hopefully causing even veteran players to rethink their conception of the class. Our primary goal when designing the update was both maintaining the balance of the class for newer players, while simultaneously rewarding those who experiment with more outlandish techniques. Thus, the update will focus heavily on the teamwork aspect that the Soldier is well equipped to explore, while introducing players to awide variety of roles that, although tough to master, will allow even the inexperienced to assist their team effectively.

Obviously, designing balanced unlockable weapons for such a potentially powerful class has been difficult, but we’re happy to say that what we have in mind should bring a whole new meaning to the term ‘Shock And Awe’.

As always,we’re looking closely at how we can improve performance across the board for our loyal players, so as a result, the forthcoming update will bring with it our largest collection of hotfixes, mechanic overhauls and engine optimizations to date. The combined effect of these fairly major changes to how you interact with both the game world and other users should help make playing Team Fortress 2 a safer, more accessible experience for everyone.

Finally, we’re extremely excited to announce not one, but two major introductions to the game. The first of these being the long-awaited launch of the Item Trading system, allowing you to put to use the myriad collection of weapons that you may have built up since the drop system was utilized with the Sniper/Spy update. Bundled with the Item Trading will also come a minor tweak to the rates at which random items are placed into the game. We’re keeping quiet about the changes for now, but we’re confident that when released, keeping hold of those 7 Kritzkriegs may not seem like such a bad idea after all.

The second revision, one that we hope will breathe new life into both the player and map-making communities, is our third new game mode to be introduced since release. King Of The Hill, a mode relying on a coordinated approach by both teams, will offer every class a chance to excel at one or more aspects of their gameplay, while raising awareness of their more unusual abilites. Of course,what game mode would be complete without several new maps to battle over? So we’re throwing in a few of those too. Until then, dismissed!