Team Fortress 2/Heartwarming

Meet The Team Videos

• In Meet the Spy, there's something sweet about the RED Spy shifting through the photos of him acquainting himself with the BLU Scout's mother to find a rather sweet one of them Holding Hands and putting it in his pocket with a genuinely fond smile on his face.

RED Spy: Ah, my petite chou-fleur.

• • What makes that moment even sweeter is that of all pictures he could've kept, he chose the tamest one of the bunch; this in turn proves that he didn't just seduce her to spite the BLU Scout, but that he is genuinely in a romantic relationship with her.
• Neat little background detail in Meet The Medic: When Heavy's on the operating table, look towards the back. Sasha gets her own gurney!
• Just the fact that Medic's not as grumpy as he usually seems is heartwarming on its own. And between the video and the outtakes, the sense that they really wanted to show that he's trying to improve his teammates' lives and keep them safe is awesome.
  • In addition, the fact that Heavy and Medic are so relaxed, happy, and trusting with each other, even as Medic gives Heavy information that the latter could use to ruin his life and Heavy lets Medic muck around in his organs. It's so sweet that even in the middle of a war-zone, deep and true bonds like that can form and flourish.
    • Not that the Heavy had any coices. Remember, he was hospitalised, because he had a giant rocket in his stomach.
• A outtake of Meet The Sandvich had Heavy beating Soldier to death. Somehow hearing SCOUT of all people plead with Heavy to stop killing Soldier is this and Tear Jerker. Even the Simpsons reference couldn't save it for sorrow.
• An outtake of Meet The Medic had the Soldier holding a dying Sniper's hand.

Comics and Other Supplemental Material

• From the "WAR!" Soldier vs. Demoman update comic, we have the BLU Soldier initially refusing to kill his new best friend, the RED Demoman, even after the Administrator made it very clear that they'd kill him if he refused, gets to me.

Soldier: "Then I guess you'd better take me out to that gravel pit and shoot me, lady. 'Cause if you ever ask me to kill my best friend again, I will put my boot so far up your ass it will be on the news!"

• • And then, after they fake the Demo agreeing to kill him for weapons:

Soldier: "Ahhhh, but dammit, it doesn't matter what he said in that weird robot voice I've never heard him talk in before. Once you've taken a man out for whiskey and ribs... then fought him... then fought the police with him... Well, you have forged a friendship thicker than any soup you can buy. That's not girl talk either. That is just facts."

• • • Let us stress the fact that, up until his Berserk Button was pushed, THE SOLDIER of all people, was willing to DIE rather than kill his best friend. The command angers him so much that he stomps his barricade into splinters. Now that is true friendship.
    • Goes for both of them, really. For them to fight, one needs to be Possessed, and the other needs his Berserk Button smashed with a sledgehammer.
• Also in the WAR! comic. The Demoman sits down to have tea with his blind mother, and they both briefly talk about how they miss his father every day.
• Robin Walker giving a heartfelt speech thanking id Software for pretty much everything ever in regards to codifying the FPS genre of games.
• In the Halloween comic, a kid trick-or-treating as Saxton Hale comes up to Heavy and Heavy sneers at the idea of spending the money he works so hard to earn for his family on some kid's candy, then proceeds to call the kid fat. When the kid starts crying, Heavy realizes how much he hates being called fat, asks him to stop crying, and gives him $7,000. Also the fact that the RED Soldier, of all people, is the one taking the three kids trick-or-treating in the first place!
  • Also, When Heavy, Spy, and Scout answer the door. Two of them regard the kids with contempt, but scout actually gets down to eye level with one of the kids, shows him his bat, and then gives the kid a molar he beat out of the guy while using said bat. Had a very "Cool Big Brother" vibe to it. It's nice to see he can act older than six once in a while.
  • If the Soldier's line about being on the lam with the children for four days is indeed just a attempt to get some candy out of the team, then it's quite touching to see the merciless military man putting on a goofy costume and taking some kids trick or treating with him.
• Some of Valve's Christmas cards are both heartwarming and hilarious. Special mention goes to the BLU Medic presenting a huge multilayer sandwich to a delighted Heavy and the Pyro getting excited over receiving coal as gift. Also, RED Heavy presenting RED Engineer with a giftwrapped BLU Spy, saying "Engineer is credit to team!"
• In "True Meaning," Engineer reading the story of Australian Christmas to Pyro, who is watching with rapt attention. The friendships between teammates can often be quite sweet.
  • Part 2 features "Old Nick", a mythical figure born of Australian Christmas who kidnaps children. Spy teaches some random kid how to stab him in the neck. Their conversation afterward boils down to "Were you afraid?" "Yep." "Are you still afraid?" "Nah."
    • Even more heartwarming is the Scout and Soldier fighting against Old Nick. They only have a few Christmas items to use as weapons, but they're effectively risking their own lives in an attempt to stop him from kidnapping the children.
      • And, there's Spy giving the kid a piggyback ride at the end.

Community-Created Stuff

• Perhaps the greatest example of this comes from outside the realm of the game. Valve recently released something called the Golden Wrench: an update to the Engineer class that turns opponents into gold statues with a killing blow. The catch was that only 100 were released, making it a very special weapon indeed. Then something unprecedented happened...a player named WiNGSPANTT of Top Tier Tactics recruited fellow recipients of the wrench into a special charity event called "Golden Charity". On August 31, they sacrificed their Golden Wrenches in the name of the Child's Play Charity organization; the more money donated, the more wrenches were destroyed. To see something so base-breaking be turned into a Crowning Moment of Heartwarming for the community is beautiful indeed. Valve put it best in their post on the subject...

The TF2 team knew that the Golden Wrench event would be controversial -- an experiment in the distribution of an ultra-rare item. We never imagined that it would empower a small group of players to benefit a much vaster group of children in need. We are constantly shocked and impressed by the creativity of the Team Fortress 2 community, but today we are humbled.

• • Valve made their own contributions to the event. One of the participants had his account hacked and his wrench destroyed prematurely. Valve normally does not replace items that were destroyed via account hijacking, but made an exception to their policy for this event and created a 101th wrench for the unfortunate player. The wrench was later destroyed along with the others for the charity.
  • Like the above, Golden Wrench owner #86, BIG_mama, destroyed hers as part of a donation fund toward the Japanese tsunami and earthquakes.
• On a smaller scale, in the fan-made video Dance Fortress 2, after the Soldier and Scout spend the majority of the video fighting each other, a BLU Spy appears behind the Soldier and the Scout immediately throws the Soldier his rocket launcher and points out the Spy behind him. They may be assholes to one another, but each respective team is still loyal to the end.

The Game Itself

• The Sam and Max themed items were released because the Telltale people became good friends of the Valve people after 2010 TF2 Studio Rumble. According to Telltale, the conversation for putting in the items were among the lines of:

Telltale: Hey wouldn't this be AWESOME?
Valve: YEAH!

• One of the Heavy's voice lines, while both badass and often made fun of, can also show genuine care on the Heavy's part. If you call for a medic while already being healed and simultaneously being shot at, the Heavy may shout "GET BEHIND ME, DOCTOR!", opting to take the bullets for the Medic. He really cares for that man.
  • Sometimes other players also get in on this, choosing to jump in front of rockets, sentries or other threats so that the Medic may live. Especially poignant in Arena mode, where there is no respawning and the Medic is the most vital member of the team. Some even compliment Medics over the mic instead of just using the voice command for "Thanks!".
  • Speaking of voice commands, the ones used when a Medic is healing. You can tell by the tone that the characters do appreciate it. Same goes with characters using teleporters.When these are coming from the Scout and Soldier it means a lot more than you would normally think.

The Soldier: You deserve a medal Doc.

• • • And the voice responses between Soldier and Demoman referencing their falling out. While most are insults, the others show that they still respect each other.

Soldier: You were good son, real good; maybe even the best.
Demoman (while drunk): ...I love you man...

• Miss Pauling apparently gave a free "open any crate" key to every player to alleviate the "Paying for Festive Keys" part of the Australian Christmas update.
• If we could be serious for a moment... Selling in-game hats for charity. THANK YOU.
  • Anyone who buys the Magnanimous Monarch. Spending 100 dollars on an in-game hat so that the money can go to charity.
    • Although knowing the TF2 community, it was probably the other way around: Giving $100 to charity so that they could get a hat. Not that some people didn't buy it for the right reasons, of course.
  • It gets even better.

Wow. Seriously, people, WOW. We knew you had it in you, but we're still amazed you've raised over $300,000 so far.
Take a BOW, TF2 community -- because that is an incredible, frankly astounding, amount of money from a dedicated number of gamers, to one heck of a lot of people in some real need right now. Anytime someone gives you guff about something negative in gaming, you go ahead and point them to this post, because here's some late-breaking damn news: they are wrong and gamers are generous and awesome.

• • Better still.

Nice work, everyone! We're excited to share that, thanks to the generosity of the TF community, in two short weeks we managed to collect $430,543.65 for the Japanese disaster relief fund. It's been inspiring to watch gamers around the world come together for such a worthy cause.

Other

• Search on YouTube for any video of the voice actors at a con or just out and about, and watch how willing they are to do the characters' voices on the fly for fans. They really love their job! Robin Atkin Downes (The Medic) even videotaped himself recording "Meet The Medic" and redubbing the outtakes just for the fans (on his YouTube channel)!